Cynematik • Cyndi Greening

GFI Grant Deadline Sep 15

By Cyndi Greening. Phoenix, Arizona USA (Cinema Minima) — The Global Film Initiative announced the grant recipients for their 2005 Funding Cycle. Filmmakers telling stories in such locations as Iran, China, Congo/Senegal, Palestine, Lebanon, Chile and Argentina received up to $10,000 to complete their films.

The NEXT Grant Deadline is September 15. (Follow this link to the guidelines and application forms in English, Spanish and French.) The stated mission of the GFI is to promote cross-cultural understanding through the medium of cinema. The Initiative will be awarding 10-20 grants of up to $10,000 per year. These funds are made available to filmmakers once the Initiative selection committee evaluates applicants’ scripts and early footage of their films. The Initiative supports films that promise artistic excellence, exhibit accomplished storytelling and offer American audiences a variety of cultural perspectives on daily life around the world. The Initiative also seeks films that substantially contribute to the development of local film industries. Filmmakers use monies received from the Initiative to complete initial production and to pay for post-production costs, such as laboratory fees, sound mixing and access to modern editing systems.

In addition to the Grants program, the Global Film Initiative has Acquisition, Distribution and Education programs.

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VIDEOcast #4
HUSTLE AND FLOW (Part One)
Videocast on Monday, May 30th, 2005

By Cyndi Greening. Phoenix, Arizona USA (Cinema Minima)

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Direct download link for the Bandwidth Challenged (Right click and choose “SAVE AS…” to download the movie)
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(PARK CITY, UTAH - Sundance 2005) HUSTLE AND FLOW director Craig Brewer talks about his early efforts and the support/encouragement he received from his father to pursue his art. Brewer talks about how a white man came to do a film about Rap with a predominantly black cast. He talks about the contribution of John Singleton and introduces his cast, including: Ludicris and Terrence Howard.

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As a college instructor in a technology-based field, I am often on the “bleeding edge” by virtue of having hundreds of students exploring and investigating the latest and greatest technology tools. Early in the semester, someone brought in a file that was encoded in H.264. We couldn’t get the file the play or edit and wondered where the heck the file came from. Suddenly, it’s popping up all over.

Of course, H.264 is the Advanced Video Code format that’s being proposed as the standard for the delivery of HD content on the web. There’s a buzz about the format out there now. To understand it, I went to HD for Indies to see what Mike had to say about it (since he is the HD guy — sometimes, this guy is so smart, it makes my head hurt to read his posts)! Anyway, he had some terrific explanatory pieces on it AND some investigation into encoding times and quality. Three of my favorite bits were:

• Mike Explains H.264

• H.264 in Theory and Practice
• The Ecstasy (and Agony) of Encoding H.264
• More On H.264

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From Mike Curtis at HD for Indies:
Sony Unveils new HDV Professional Camera - HVR-A1U

-$3500

-CMOS based

-1/3″, 3 megapixel sensor

-so if it’s single chip, is that 960×1080 with three colors? (this is a total guess)

-2.7″ LCD screen

-from the press release:



The HVR-A1U offers many of the same features as the HVR-Z1U, such as balanced audio, XLR inputs, SMPTE timecode and a Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* Lens. However, its smaller footprint makes this camcorder ideal for applications where space is at a premium or extreme mobility is required.



-shoots HDV & DV (DV can be 4:3 or 16:9)

-still image capture (1920×1440 in memory mode, 1440×10 in Tape & Play/Edit mode)

-on screen histogram

-basically, a big brother to the HC1 I linked to earlier

Picture 1 - front angle picture

Picture 2 - front angle w/LCD flipped out, LCD facing

Picture 3 - front angle, LCD flipped out but LCD facing away

Picture 4 - side view

Picture 5 - picture of CMOS sensor

Picture 6 - picture of Enhanced Imaging Processor, which they say is making a difference in image quality. Ummm….OK.

Mike’s (further) Comments: at a price point below the Z1U, and with 1 CMOS rather then 3 CCD sensors, this is yet another entrant into the HDV field. By year end, this makes for 7 HD cameras that I know of under $7000. It may well be the Year of HD after all.

Again, it’s a matter of waiting until we see quality of image from the cameras, but it’s nice to have choices. —-mike

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VIDEOcast #3
SAVING FACE Q&A (Part One)
Videocast on Monday, May 16th, 2005

By Cyndi Greening. Phoenix, Arizona USA (Cinema Minima)

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(PARK CITY, UTAH - Sundance 2005) Director Alice Wu spoke eloquently and at great length about her Sundance film, SAVING FACE. Born and raised in San Jose, California, Wu received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Computer Science at Stanford. SAVING FACE screened at Toronto, Sundance and opened the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.

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(PARK CITY, UTAH - Sundance 2005) Actors Joan Chen, Lynn Chen, and Michelle Krusiec discuss their reasons for accepting roles in Alice Wu’s debut feature, how they prepared for the roles and their experience filming with Wu. Candid and entertaining Q&A.

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VIDEOcast #2 - ELLIE PARKER Q&A
Videocast on Monday, May 16th, 2005

By Cyndi Greening. Phoenix, USA (Cinema Minima)
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(PARK CITY, UTAH - Sundance 2005) Here is a portion of the ELLIE PARKER Q&A that followed the first Sundance screening wherein Naomi Watts and director Scott Coffey talk about Naomi’s commitment to acting AND how hard it was to film in a tiny car. It includes a hilarious reenactment of their positions in the car during filming. (Note: You must have Real Player installed to view the clips!)

Like Podcasting, Vcasting allows you to download video programs to your iPod (or other storage device) to view at your convenience. The initial VCasts are from the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. Let us know if you enjoy them and would like more!

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Since we like being on the bleeding edge of digital technology, we’re adding VIDEOCASTING to our information distribution options. Like Podcasting, Vcasting allows you to download video programs to your iPod (or other storage device) to view at your convenience. The initial VCasts are from the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. Let us know if you enjoy them and would like more!

Videocast on Sunday, May 15th, 2005

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(PARK CITY, UTAH - Sundance 2005) The sea of humanity that walks up and down Main Street each day is peppered with celebrities, wannabees, almost-ares and never-will-bees. Sundance virgins find their first walk up Main “breathtaking” for the views, the filmmaker scene AND the step incline at altitude. Footage of the crowds and celebrities on Main Street to give CinemaMinima readers a chance to experience the “Main” scene at Sundance.

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By Cyndi Greening. Phoenix, Arizona USA (Cinema Minima) — I am so jealous, I’m aching. The semester (finally) ended, so I tuned into DW Hudson’s musings on Cannes. He writes, “Year after year, Cannes boils down to tough choices. Do I wake up early enough to catch the daily 8:30 am press screening or do I go for an extra hour or two of sleep? Do I go see the Chinese film that’s playing in Competition, or do I go see a film that’s playing in the Director’s Fortnight at the same time? Do I cover the obscure Bosnian film (and the year that question came up, it was NO MAN’S LAND, which went on to win the screenwriting award in Cannes and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film)? By the third day of the festival each year, these are the questions that every journalist (and probably every festival attendee) begins to ask.” I wanted to be at Cannes this year but had neither the time nor the credentials. I’m already plotting next year … maybe, maybe.

( Because I was so weary … I actually got this soooo wrong … a note from GreenCine Daily Editor David Hudson: Those are actually J Sperling Reich’s musings. I’d love to be in Cannes myself, too… who knows, maybe we can get a boatload of busy bloggers over next year!)     David Hudson — 5/16/05; 11:52:12 AM

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2005 SUNDANCE PRODUCERS CONFERENCE

Applications MUST be submitted no later than May 25th, 2005.
Applicants will be notified of their acceptance by June 10, 2005.
The conference will be held on August 4 - 7, 2005.

Registration limited to 80 participants. Acceptance is based on application.
Registration fee per person: $650

2006 FILM FESTIVAL SUBMISSION DEADLINES

• ALL EARLY SUBMISSIONS AUGUST 19, 2005
• ALL SHORTS SEPTEMBER 2, 2005
• ALL FEATURES SEPTEMBER 16, 2005
• LATE SUBMISSIONS SEPTEMBER 30, 2005
• SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIALS DEADLINE October 28, 2005

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Serenity Production Still

On his blog, The Shape of Days, Dallas, Texas native Jeff Harrell is covering the Advanced Video Coding that is being developed for web delivery of HD content. The articles have numerous video snaps and clips that compare Sorenson 3 with H.264 compression. He has STAR WARS clips to demonstrate the difference in the two compression algorithms.

(NOTE: You must have Quicktime 7 installed to view the H.264 clip!) Compare Star Wars Sorenson with Star Wars H.264 to get a sense of what he’s writing about. Better yet, GO TO HIS SITE and read all of the articles.

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My apologies for having been slacking on the blogging. I am finally finishing the Photoshop CS interactive textbook that I’ve been working on. It’s turning out well but it has been the most difficult of tasks! Coming at the end of the school semester, it’s really gobbled up every available spare moment. I should be back online within a few days! I’ve got some exciting new podcasts coming. Hope to see you regularly in the blogosphere by the end of the week. Looking forward to writing to you soon!

[EXCERPT: Cynthia Greening, Senior Editor of Independent Film for Cinema Minima, authors interactive Photoshop CS training . Published by Course Technology (a division of Thomson Publishing), the book has over three hours of tutorial movies on topics like Digital Photography, Color Correction for Commercial Print, Designing Web Graphics and Digital Illustration. While it has cramped her blogging time, Greening promises to be back in the blogosphere by week's end.]

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