Cynematik • Cyndi Greening

Podcast on Sunday, April 17th, 2005
Posted from Phoenix, Arizona

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Karen Copeland and Cyndi Greening discuss they seven key steps to an effective screenplay using the TRUBY METHOD.

• Key steps are described and examples given in well-known films
  1. Problem/Need - Problems (known and unknown) to the character at the start of the script

  2. Desire Line - Yes or No Question about the outcome; the track the audience rides on
  3. Plan - Hero’s decision about how to solve the problem; must fail
  4. Battle - Difficult and painful for hero; irrevocably altered
  5. Self-Revelation - What the hero discovers about how he’s been behaving
  6. New Equilibrium - Hero is left at higher (or lower) point at the end
• Purpose of B and C storylines
• Common structure mistakes that new screenwriters/filmmakers make

You can find out more about John Truby at Truby.Com.

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Five of my students have completed their second short film entitled SHATTERED. Mike Montesa, Peter Lowry, Lindsey Black, Brandown Marsala and Carlos Espinosa have dubbed their production group YumYum² (I have no idea why). As you can see by the production stills, they’ve got a nice looking film. (You can see a few more stills and their VOLITION Poster on the same site.)

They’re getting ready to do the Film Festival Circuit (as soon as they get music clearance handled). The film is well-acted and visually compelling. They shot on mini-DV and then used two different post-production processes on the footage. Being the total techno-geek-nerd that I am, it was as exciting to see how these two processes effected the impact of the film.

They decided to use the Red Giant Plug-in Magic Bullet 1.x with the Berlin style option to make a cooler, more remote feeling film. The filter was simply dropped on the timeline and allowed to render. It took several hours for the five-minute film.

Then they used the NIK Color Efex Pro plug-in on the C41 to E6 conversion for a warmer feeling film. This required that they output the film as stills to be Batch Processed in Photoshop CS. There were 10,400 digital frames that took 4 DAYS to process. Then, the stills needed to be stitched together again in AfterEffects. It was an arduous process that crashed several times.

Ultimately, the question is how it affected the film. The audience watched it both ways. The general consensus was that the Magic Bullet Berlin version was more appealing for this particular film. There was an amazing amount of detail that was still visible in the NIK version.

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For those who are unfamiliar with Mesa Community College, it is one of the largest (if not THE largest) community college in the United States. We have an average of 28,000 students per semester. The headcount in my program alone is 408 students.

Each year, we have an annual juried art show. The 1500 art students per term produce three to five pieces of art. The results in a potential 9,000 to 15,000 works that are eligible for the annual show. Of that number about 250 are selected. There are prizes for Best of Medium, Emerging Talent and Juror’s Choice. The top prize is BEST OF SHOW and, this year, the best of show went to Digital Filmmaking student Stephen Olmstead. To be fair, Stephen also took photography, drawing and design courses at MCC so it’s appropriate that he would win Best of Show.

His winning film was entitled Losing Jim. The cinematography is excellent. Since Stephen is also a musician, it’s not surprising that the music was terrific. This week, Kai Kim (MCC Drawing & Design Professor) and I will have the pleasure of attending the annual awards banquet at the college for the purpose of presenting Stephen with the award. Sweeeeeeet.

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Danny Boyle podcasts on MILLIONS

Fox Searchlight has posted the Danny Boyle Weekend Read which includes a terrific 5 minute Danny Boyle Podcast about his effort to make and distribute MILLIONS. MILLIONS is the story of what happens when two orphaned boys find a suitcase of money. Boyle refers to MILLIONS as SHALLOW GRAVE for children.

I’m particularly fond of Boyle’s low-budget, digital feature 28 DAYS LATER. It’s sort of a darker, grittier, the logical extreme of Terry Gilliam’s 12 MONKEYS. One of my favorite things in the film is Toby Sedgwick’s infected priest. On the Sundance Channel, there was an ANATOMY OF A SCENE episode in which Sedgwick shared how he developed the chaotic body movement of the character. It’s worth watching just to see what he does with that character.

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Morgan Spurlock’s 30 DAYS on FX

Spurlock made an engrossing, informative, entertaining documentary with virtually no money. He was smart about the topic of his documentary. Using his body as a (relatively) scientific laboratory, he ate nothing but McDonald’s for 30 days. The success of that film and the formula he used led to his own series on FX. Now, a mainstream producer/director, Spurlock has parlayed his skill and savvy into his own series.

Like Angela Robinson (who made the transition with Disney’s HERBIE, FULLY LOADED) and Jared Hess (who was featured in Vanity Fair as one of the hot new directors), Spurlock is living the cinema dream.

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Mike Luciano talks about working on Morgan Spurlock’s 30 DAYS

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Mike Luciano and Cyndi Greening discuss Mike’s transition from digital filmmaking student to industry professional. Among the things Mike discusses his:

• role as a crew member for Morgan Spurlock’s extreme reality series 30 DAYS

• role as PA, Associate Producer and Assistant Director on Brad Loobin’s feature film shot last month starring Mopreme Shakur
• educational experience at Mesa Community College and Arizona State University
• experience in post-production at Subvoyant in New York
• how Sundance helped him be a better filmmaker
• how to connect and communicate with creatives, cast and crew to get the best performance and film possible

You can see Mike’s films, demo reel and design work at MikeLuciano.Com.

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From GreenCine Daily: As New Yorkers rev up for the Tribeca Film Festival, opening April 19 and running through May 1, they’re sorting through their options: 158 features and 96 shorts. Enter the Village Voice with what’s become an almost obligatory yet…

Welcome to RealityWood: Full Frame Aims to Push Documentary to the Mainstream. “Last year we saw the documentary explosion. A lot of people connected that to politics. The films were stirring up debate and creating a lot of attention for documentary, but I think what happened is more subtle than that. We achieved a tipping point that has finally succeeded in weaving the documentary film into the daily lives of people in the mainstream.” remarked Nancy Biurski as this year’s Full Frame Festival wound to a close. “The quality of film and variety of story that we saw in our entries this year is better than anything we’ve seen before.” With 77 films in competition and 105 total films unspooling over it’s four day run, Full Frame for another consecutive year expanded its already wide range of offerings begging one to ask not the festival’s trademark question ‘How much reality can you handle?’ but ‘How much reality can an audience member squeeze into a long weekend?’ Hugo Perez reports from the Full Frame Documentary Festival. (INDIEwire)

“Murderball,” “Moon,” “Shelby Knox” Among Top Winners at Full Frame Doc Fest. Hitting record ticket sales of more than 19,000, organizers of the Full Frame Documentary Festival concluded their 2005 event on Sunday in Durham, NC. Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro’s “Murderball” and Leonard Retel Helmrich’s “Shape of the Moon” shared the Full Frame Grand Jury Award, while “Murderball” also won the festival’s local audience award. The big audience prize winner, however, chosen by attendees at the festival and those joining the event in ten other cities via a satellite partnership with Emerging Pictures, was Marion Lipschutz and Rose Rosenblatt’s “The Education of Shelby Knox.” The film also won the Full Frame Women in Leadership Award. (also INDIEwire)

Ten Years Later, Considering the Impact of Dogme 95. It’s been 10 years since Lars von Trier made a great proclamation on stage at the Odeon Theatre in Paris, announcing Dogme 95 and The Vows of Chastity. His red fliers boldly opened, “Dogme 95 is a collective of film directors founded in spring 1995, Dogme 95 has the expressed goal of countering ‘certain tendencies’ in the cinema today. Dogme 95 is a rescue action!” The Dogme brothers (von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg, Soren Kragh-Jacobsen, and Kristian Levring) instituted vows, restrictions that filmmakers had to follow to become “Dogme certified” — the rules included shooting on location, using hand-held cameras, avoiding genre or period films, not crediting the director, avoiding special lighting, and recording sound only with images. They wanted to get rid of the slickness and the auteur mindset, and to concentrate only on story and acting. Wendy Mitchell reports from London. (INDIEwire again)

Rock Amp Legends 1.0.1. Killer guitar amp simulation for AU, HTDM, RTAS and VST formats. (Mac Downloads)

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Born and raised in Wisconsin, it’s always interesting for me to see how what my fellow cheeseheads are up to … especially in the world of filmmaking. Last weekend was the Wisconsin film festival and the award winners are listed below! Not surprisingly, Katherine Leggett’s SMALL TOWN SECRETS won a jury award!

2005 Competition Winners

Best Narrative Short: LIFELIKE
Narrative Short | USA | 2004 | 19 min | Color | DigiBeta
Director: John Besmer
Madison filmmaker and creative director John Besmer shot Lifelike in Mt. Horeb.

Best Documentary Short: SMALL TOWN SECRETS
Documentary Short | USA | 2004 | 8 min | Color | Beta SP
Director: Katherine Leggett
Stanford, Calif., filmmaker and writer Katherine Leggett is a UW-Madison alum.

Best Experimental: MY MOST IMPORTANT SELF-PORTRAIT
Experimental Short | USA | 2004 | 7 min | B/W | Mini DV
Director: James Barany
Waukesha filmmaker James Barany teaches at the Milwaukee Institute of Arts &
Design.

Best Documentary Feature: THE REAL DIRT ON FARMER JOHN
Documentary Feature | USA | 2005 | 83 min | Color | DigiBeta
Director: Taggart Siegel
Both filmmaker Taggart Siegel and Farmer John Peterson are Beloit College alumni.

Best Feature: NBT: NEVER BEEN THAWED
Narrative Feature | USA | 2004 | 87 min | Color | DigiBeta
Director: Sean Anders
Writer, director and actor Sean Anders is a Madison native.

2005 Kodak Film Stock Grant

Director Scott Foley for TO SAY GOODBYE
Documentary Short | USA | 2004 | 19 min | B/W | 16mm
Filmmaker Scott Foley received his MFA in film from UW-Milwaukee, where he currently
teaches.

2005 Kodak Opportunity Award Film Stock Grant

To recognize achievement in a project that did not originate on film, and
to provide an opportunity for the filmmaker to work on film in a future project
Director John Mossman for SPACEMAN DAN’S 243rd FLIGHT
Narrative Short | USA | 2004 | 31 min | Color | Mini DV
Filmmaker John Mossman is a UW-Madison alum and shot Spaceman Dan in the Baraboo
and Mt. Horeb region.

Audience Award Winners

Narrative Feature Audience Award winner: Brothers (IFC Films),
Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier’s searing story of two brothers, set against the
backdrop of the war in Afghanistan, which also won the World Cinema Dramatic
Audience Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Documentary Feature Audience Award winner: The Real Dirt on Farmer
John, filmmaker Taggart Siegel’s fascinating character study of an iconoclastic
artist-farmer, John Peterson, in northern Illinois and his visionary farming
community. The Real Dirt on Farmer John also won the jury prize for the
Best Documentary Feature in the Wisconsin’s Own Competition, as well as the
Documentary Audience Award at the 2005 Slamdance Film Festival. Both Siegel
and Peterson are Beloit College alums.

Student Shorts Competition

For student filmmakers at Wisconsin schools, colleges and universities.

Best Animated Short: ONE MINUTE INTERVIEW
Animated Short | USA | 2004 | 1 min | Mini DV
Director: Kyja Kristjansson-Nelson (Graduate student and teaching assistant
at UW-Milwaukee, working toward her M.F.A. in Film)

Best Experimental Short: EXISTENTIAL SEARCH OF A NEEDLE
Experimental Short | USA | 2004 | 3 min | Color and B/W | Mini DV
Director: Fevzi Balli (UW-Madison student who will begin his graduate studies
in film in fall 2005)

Best Documentary Short: BLAZE ORANGE
Documentary Short | USA | 2004 | 16 min | Color | DV Cam
Director: Kevin Kilduff (UW-Madison, majoring in Communication Arts and Economics)

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Alec Hart
Cinema Minima Sundance Correspondent, Filmmaker, Festival Enthusiast, Teenager

Podcast on Sunday
April 10th, 2005
Posted from Phoenix, Arizona

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Alec Hart and Cyndi Greening discuss the Sundance Film Festival from the teen point of view.

Hart talks about his festival experiences including:

• Three consecutive years at Sundance (starting at age 14)

• The “Independent Style” of filmmaking
• How inspiring the festival is for teens who want to be filmmakers
• How to connect with industry personnel
• Favorite documentary and dramatic films from each year
• THE SQUID & THE WHALE, BORN INTO BROTHELS, CONTROL ROOM, NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, and OPEN WATER
• Seeing films that millions of people never get the opportunity to see
• Value of seeing new technology at the Digital Center
• Whether it is easier to make films in LA
• Reasons to attend the festival for teens and others
• Who to take with you to Sundance

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“It’s day two of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, and the cinetrix just met Walter Mosley.” Bill Clinton’s favorite author’s had a hand in the “Why War?” series at the fest and the cinetrix notes: “Driving here yesterday, I passed a billboard on I-85 that boasted that North Carolina was the most military-friendly state in the nation, which makes the slate of war docs hit harder, sting more, somehow.” Among the film’s reviewed in that deceptively casual style of hers: Occupation: Dreamland (the cinetrix points to Merle Bertrand’s Film Threat rave), Barbara Kopple’s Bearing Witness (also screening at hotdocs) and the eight-minute short, Getting Through to the President (trailer).

Source: GreenCine Daily!

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Festival Programmer Israel Ehrisman

TIS_CM 2005-04-03

Podcast on Sunday, April 3rd, 2005
Posted from Phoenix, Arizona

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Israel Ehrisman and Cyndi Greening discuss festival programming, Sundance 2005, cinema artistry and the “Golden Age of the Film Festival.”

Ehrisman talks about his festival experience including:

• Ticket Management for the Full Frame Documentary Festival

• Programming the North Carolina Gay & Lesbian Film Festival
• Theatre Management for Sundance Film Festival

As a programmer, he discusses:

• What influences his decision about what to program

• Films at the upcoming Full Frame Festival
• Films at the upcoming NCGLFF
• Tracking films from other festivals

As an avid film lover and festival goer, he shares his thoughts on:

• Sony’s HVR-Z1U high-definition camera

• Democratization of film because of digital tools
• D.E.B.S. the short, the feature and the trading cards
• Barbara Kopple’s documentary BEARING WITNESS to screen at Full Frame
• Katherine Leggett’s wonderful short film SMALL TOWN SECRETS which screened at Sundance and Full Frame
• Other Sundance 2005 films including: AFTER INNOCENCE, RING OF FIRE: THE EMILE GRIFFITH STORY, THE DYING GAUL and LOGGERHEADS
• Why film festivals are important
• What you can gain from attending film festivals
• The importance of visual communication in the coming century

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The premiere edition of Make Magazine has the plans for a $14 Steadicam Stabilizer that is reviewed by the techies at Ars Technica. They even made a quicktime comparison of footage shot with steadicam, without steadicam, with/without electronic stabilzation. It’s visually conclusive.

Additional Useful Equipment Sites:

Cody Deegan’s site has plans for another camera stabilizer with comparison footage, too. Ron Dexter offers his opinion on a number of DV cranes and dollies. He advocates the equipment sold on DV Moves.

Although they have a bit of a price tag, the equipment at Cinekinetic generally gets good reviews!

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