[Mark Rabinowitz] Once again, I go spanning the globe to bring you the wild and wacky happenings in the world of documentaries! (Notice how I ripped off not one but two NYC-area sportscasters, there? Cool, right? Word.)

Thank You Driver, For Getting Me Here
Over at parent (sister? brother? 3rd cousin twice removed?) publication indieWIRE, Jason Guerrasio's production report details Alex Gibney's latest, "The Magic Bus" (working title). In 1964, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters took a bus ride from La Honda, California to the New York World's Fair and brought 16mm cameras along. Cool, right? Well, Gibney's got ahold of 40 hours of footage and is crafting a doc centered on the journey. Personally, I think he should re-create the trip with some of today's "Merry Pranksters." Move over, I'm driving.

Bergstein Offers Us Cake, Schnack Throws It In His Face
Over at his marvelous blog All These Wonderful Things, AJ Schnack writes what is billed as a commentary but amounts to an open letter to ThinkFilm owner David Bergstein. In it he links to this Hollywood Reporter piece profiling Bergstein containing what is becoming a rather infamous quote that amounts to a big "fuck you" to the people owed money by his company. On an odd note, the Reporter piece quotes Bergstein's age as 46, which would have him being born in 1961 or 1962. How then is the following sentence from the piece possible: "In the late 1970s he became an investment banker, seeking undervalued stocks." At 16 he was an investment banker?

On a tangential note, if I get one more pop-up from the Reporter's site asking me to participate in a survey, I'm going to fucking explode. Seriously guys, knock it off!

Do Indie Films Suck? Mmmmmaybe!
indieWIRE recently ran a doc-related interviews that I think warrants my (and your, natch) attention. In it, "Beautiful Losers" director Aaron Rose answers a question on what the term "independent film" means to him with:

One thing I've realized is that from my experience "independent film" just means "bad film" these days. I think at one point that was different, but it seems to me that in the current climate, most independent films are just low-budget mimicries of the same old Hollywood formulas.

It's not as bad as it seems, actually. It's a provocative quote for sure, but he backs it up and the piece is a bit of a call to arms for the indie, DIY set and it fits right into the ongoing discussions about alternative methods of funding distribution and distribution itself.

Funding A Film, $10 At A Time
Over at Docs Interactive, the Docs In Progress folks have a rather interesting post that dovetails quite nicely with the above-mentioned movement towards alternative funding and distribution methods. Seems they got an email from filmmakers who are, according tot he post "trying to adopt Obama-style small-donor online fund raising techniques." Check it out, it's pretty cool. I'll do my best to catch up with them when I am at the convention in Denver. Read the post to find out what they'll be doing there!