New ReelerTV - No Mention of the "M" Word! - A Quiet City Fan is Born
Weinstein death threat, the end of IFC and Generation D.I.Y. in theaters are all in the News. S.T. talks with Joe Swanberg about what it's like to have his film, "Hannah Takes the Stairs" playing in New York. And Karina Longworth discusses the overlooked films programmed in the New Talkies: Generation D.I.Y.
Lots of words in this episode. Some too strong for iTunes, but at least nobody said the "M" word.
A funny little Google-ism:
This was already blogged about by Alison Willmore at the IFC TV Blog a couple of weeks ago.
I had the pleasure of seeing "Quiet City" and enjoyed it thoroughly. The performances were natural by every actor in the film. There's usually one bad apple, but not here. Fellow indieWIRE blogger, Michael Tully has a nice cameo talking about "...pills, powder or pipes..." I'm sure I have the order wrong.
I never trust anything that has had as much hype as the series has had and to be fair, I haven't seen any of the other films, but Quiet City really got me on many levels. And I'm not just saying that because it takes place in my neighborhood. It really is worthy of the attention and deserves much success.
After 1 million views, who wants merch? - and - "All God's Children" Update
As unbelievable as it may seem, my little video hit the 1 million views mark. In 2 days. Check it out:
I tried to have some merchandise for sale (not for profit), but Cafe Press shut me down before I could even buy a T-shirt for myself. I had men's organic cotton T's, women's tank-tops, coffee mugs and buttons all lined up for purchase. Cafe Press expressed concerns with my compliance to their corporate "Content Usage Policy (CUP)" namely the part pertaining to "...designing, manufacturing, marketing and/or selling products that may infringe the rights of a third party, including, copyrights (e.g., an image of a television cartoon character)..."
"I personally believe" that their concerns are totally unwarranted. But here's what the T-shirt would have looked like had they let it go. A screen capture from the video with her famous first words subtitled, "I personally believe" gracing the front and my alter ego, POPobscura's logo stamped on the back.
Miss Teen South Carolina was on the Today Show where they let her off the hook so easily and gave her a second chance to answer the "confusing" question on LIVE television. Golly, aren't Ann and Matt swell? I don't think they should have laughed in her face, but they could have given her a little harder of a time. Watch:
We received a DVD in the mail the other day containing some nearly pristine Super 8 footage from the early 60's of the Mamou Alliance Academy, the boarding school that is one of the central subjects of "All God's Children." Over the next week, Luci and I are going to work it into the cut. It is absolutely amazing. There's children traveling to Mamou in the back of a jeep, getting out at the school, scenic Africa shots, children playing and more and more. It's unbelievable.
The woman who sent it to us saw our current version of the film and her response reinforced the reason why we're making the film in first place. It's not to please festivals and/or distributors, but to help all the adults that are still dealing with surviving an abusive childhood under the dogma of a "tortured theology." (to quote my Uncle Howard) But her words of praise and thanks for our filmmaking efforts moved Luci and I deeply. Most of our faith in ourselves was returned in one short email. We can't wait to unveil yet another (and this time final) version of "All God's Children."
Unbeknownst to me, Luci was writing an entry in her blog about the same thing. The similarities are uncanny, but then again, that's what makes us such a team. Read it here.
Tapping the Meme -or- "I Personally Believe" -or- Re-Producing to Add Value
At the risk of being repetitious, I have to write more regarding yesterday's post. Something unforeseen has happened: "Miss Teen USA South Carolina 2007 with Subtitles" is a YouTube hit! It went from 178,025 views to 253,356 while I was writing this entry!
Here are some screen grabs of the numbers. I kid you not, as I type this last edit at 1:18 am EST, the numbers have climbed to 328,681 making this first picture obsolete.
but ALL 14 honors it received are still holding strong:
At first glance, it may appear that all I did was rip someone else's video off and add sub-titles. But as I see it, I saw a lack in the "original" and took the initiative to fix its shortcomings and in the process created a more valuable video. At least now, you can understand what she says. I guess instead of being a producer on this one, I was a re-producer. I'm sure there's a real discussion on art history's evolution in there somewhere. Could we say the mash-up is the new Dada? They do seem to be founded on the same principles. Rejecting the prevailing standards, enhancing the mundane and effectively creating "anti-art".
That might be stretching it a bit and as we all know, I'm no Marcel Duchamp, but I was happy to see the political undertones of my video didn't go unnoticed.
Beyond that, who really is the originator of the online video? NBC wouldn't dare release their videos into the world wide ethers. How would they ever make money? Don't get me started on the proprietary nature of old media. I digress.
And for an added traffic-generating twist, I put the URL for this blog in the YouTube's video's description box. My blog has never been clicked so many times! But it'll all be over tomorrow... or will it? Like all good memes, they have to fade away to make room for the next one coming along.
NEW FEATURE:
I've added a VodPod widget in the right column. I'll keep adding videos as I find/produce/re-produce them. It's a random selection so if you don't like what you see, refresh the page and another batch will come up. Enjoy!
Watch as she tries to answer this very difficult question to the best of her abilities. You can almost see the gears grind to a halt.
More incredible than her answer is the fact that she goes on to place 3rd!
You think if she was concentrating more on her own education, instead of what would win an exploitation contest, she would have answered this question better?
- OR -
If she didn't place such importance on winning this demeaning pageant of 1950's values, she wouldn't have been so nervous and could have easily answered the question, "I truly believe... education in America is under-funded by the government and under-appreciated by the society... and we must change this for the future of our children." ?
- OR -
Maybe her answer is a truer reflection of the education system in the U.S. than any child's inability to find the United States on a map.
Lock Your Post Production Doors! Good Hard Working People Are Knockin'
Luci and I are producing a new series with Magnet Media for Zoom-In Online. We're producing 12 episodes (season 1) of the most entertaining post-production-tech-geek-fun that can be found on the Internet.
I know that's a big claim, but we just shot our pilot and I started editing it today - it's going to be great. The plan is to tour the most exclusive, highest profiled, post-production and studio spaces. We'll examine their gear under a microscope making sure the hype and budget is all what they say it is. And we've got the guy to do it.
I'm sure he knows what this is a picture of (I don't. I just thought it looked tech-y) and not only that, he probably knows what piece of equipment would be newer, better and faster.
Our host is Evan Schechtman, the boy genius who dropped out of film school to open Outpost Digital and eventually sold to @Radical Media before he was 23. He claims he can't be out-teched. From what I've seen, not only does he know his gear, but he can recite model numbers and specs for minutes at a time without breaking stride. On top of all that, Evan has impeccable comic timing and camera presence. He's a natural and we have great things planned for him.
He really won me over while pointing to an array of 10, 500 GB LaCie back-up drives, Evan said, "...These things might as well have an expiration date on them. It's like playing Russian Roulette with your data." I couldn't agree more. (SEE MY EARLIER RANT/POST)
The release date for the series is still to be determined, but be sure that when it is, I'll be blogging all about it. We're very excited with this new venture with Magnet Media. We all feel like it's the beginning of a great relationship.
And here's something funny from Black20. This is the episode that hooked me for good.
Revisiting All God's Children and the blog got some press
We are making yet even MORE changes to the film. Or at least, we will be soon. We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of a video tape full of Super 8 footage of children at Mamou!! This is what we feel our film has been so desperately needing and we can't wait to integrate it into the cut. We hope it will really liven up some of the interviews and replace some of the static photography.
Having migrated to Final Cut Pro from Avid, I feel lost going back to the interface. It feels so archaic and clunky. Avid requires you to click so many times before you can do a task, whereas Final Cut, you can one-click the same task most of the time. I really don't know how I ever did it and liked it so much.
I feel like I've been out of the doc scene for a while since I've been concentrating so much on online video production. I just came across this mention in an indieWIRE article from March -
Here's an excerpt: And let's not forget about some of the fine doc-focused blogs housed right here on indieWIRE, including Steve Rosenbaum's Docu-Blog/Steve's POV. Although there is a lot about documentary film in the blog, Rosenbaum also offers his unique take on everything from Web 2.0 to the fate of television as we know it. Amy King, Associate Director of SILVERDOCS, provides her own fresh perspective on the world of documentary film on King Blog, managing to incorporate welcome doses of humor while writing about festivals, seminars, and things in the news of interest to doc makers and lovers.
Also housed on indieWIRE's servers are blogs by Scott Westphal-Solary (no link necessary) and Morgan Spurlock, both of which generally focus more on the filmmakers' work, and the wild roller coaster ride that goes along with making a documentary film. Readers got to follow Westphal-Solary's three year journey from the early stages of his project "All God's Children" through to its recent completion [SEE ABOVE]- with an honest look at all the struggles in between. Spurlock's fascinating story has also played out on his blog for the past three years, from touring the festival circuit with "Super Size Me" to his appearance on "Oprah" to the explosion of his "30 Days" TV series - and the many ups and downs along the way.
So where is this vibrant online doc community headed? "I think it's clearly moving towards online distribution and exhibition of documentary content," says Block, who also maintains a personal blog called Around the Block: Doug Block's Doc Blog. "And I think creative collaboration across geographical boundaries will be increasingly viable. A lot of smart folks are searching for a paradigm of online distribution that combines the best aspects of successes like YouTube and MySpace within a serious documentary framework, where it's not just a playpen for self-promotion or goofing around." Stay tuned...
i was thrilled to read this article and quite honored to be mentioned along side all these other bloggers. It gives me all the more reason to commit to updating more often.
High Quality Online Shows. They're Out There...you just have to leave YouTube to find them.
Welcome to the first installment in a forthcoming series featuring my favorite online shows. I'm going to call it: "My Favorite Online Shows" (genius, huh?)
blip.tv is a video hosting site that we try to use to it's fullest. If you're in the "business" of doing shows for the web, they're the closest thing to 1-stop shopping for your web uploading and distribution needs. blip's a favorite for people like myself because they don't restrict you to 100mb files like most (if not all) videosharingsites AND they'll host the Quicktime file (almost unheard of). They have a plethora of online series. Many of them seem to share the same regard for clean compression, high production values and quality content that we at Good Hard Working People strive for.
I figured I should start sharing some of my favorite quality online shows instead of showing yet another viral video that's received 1,000,000+ views. Like this guy:
Don't get me wrong, I'll be posting plenty of those as well. They don't call them "viral" for nothing. And we are far from perfect in our shooting and encoding process, but we're quickly improving and have been since we started.
Because of the shear size of YouTube's audience/users, you kind of have no choice but to syndicate there. But if you want the video to look good, you don't make YouTube your only host. What differentiates our aesthetic from the typical "YouTuber" is the care, knowledge, technology, money and sweat we put into our online video. The shows I'll be featuring will do the same and you guessed it, they all host their shows on blip.tv. Coincidence?
#1 Wallstrip. Where stock culture meets pop culture.
For those of you who know me, you know I've worked closely with Adam Elend and Jeff Marks since they began this show. They've been doing this show DAILY for nearly a year and were recently bought by CBS. They've produced, written and directed everything you see. In other words, I've seen them first-hand busting their butts and they deserve all the success they've had. I'm sure the outstanding acting chops of their host, Lindsay Campbell had a little to do with their success as well. Check it out :
#2 Make. The Makezine Podcast shows you how to make things! Bre Pettis makes something every week and shows you step by step how to do it. This is one of my favorites.
And one more. Goodnight Burbank A short, smart comedy set behind the scenes of a local channel's newsroom. Really funny stuff. Jet Set's Zadi Diaz has a cameo in this episode. Jet Set is one of the most popular and well-produced online shows, but more on them later.
Blog's Grand Re-Opening! Come on in! More than just reading!
If you don't see the right column-->>
CLICK ON THE "MAIN" LINK ABOVE TO GO TO THE HOME PAGE.
The last tweaks (for now) are finally on the blog just in time for Monday. While you're here, leave a comment letting me know what you think.
CHECK OUT THE NEW FEATURES:
- Video introduction featuring me. Be kind.
- I've got links! Click around. Be my friend.
- We've got shows. Shows from the past and more to come in the near future!! Click 'em. Watch 'em. Let them entertain you.
- Subscription services. RSS or email updates delivered directly to your inbox. Never open your browser again!
- MyBlogLog. Something fun for all you fans of blogs. Check it out!
- Recent posts. In case you don't feel like scrolling.
- Look! I've got categories now. Want to read only about my personal faves? Now you can.
- Search! For what? I don't know.
-Technorati tag cloud. This is what the people are looking for. Are you?
- A lengthy Archive list by the month. Not sure I'm going to keep this here. I'm definitely going to shorten it.
- That's right. A Creative Commons License. It's cool. Read about it. Use it. Support it.
and more features to come... I just have to figure out more secrets of the code.
Big thanks go out to Brent, my code guru friend who helped put the icing on the cake! He taught me some killer tricks and cleaned up my wretched code. He did it all for a few homemade brownies and some Gorilla coffee. My kind of friend. This was light work for him and he caught a mean sugar/caffeine buzz in the process. He and his wife, Teresa, have their own web design company. They custom build and design all their stuff. Tell them I sent ya and he'll work for you too (he'll have to charge $$ though). Check 'em out: Mimo y Mima
I hope to really start utilizing this blog as it was meant to be used. No promises, but I'm going to really try to update more frequently and work as much vlogging in as I can stand (it still pains me to be in front of the camera). We were joking earlier that maybe I'll cast an actor to play the part of me for the vlog stuff. Stay tuned.
Oh, and I promise to fix that whole "MAIN" link thing too. Sorry about that.
For the past three days, I have been fumbling my way through remodeling the blog. Despite all the problems and frustrations, I'm so much happier with the new look and feel. The page is so much more open and airy than before. I've wanted to shed the confines of the text boxes and color scheme of the old blog for a very long time, but in order to do that, I would have to venture into the treacherous waters of HTML and CSS code (read previous post). This weekend, I jumped in head first wearing concrete shoes and what you see are the results.
Perhaps the biggest change is that I put myself in front of the camera and posted it online for the world to see (if they were only watching). When I had to decide on which picture I would use in the right-hand column, I figured why just have another headshot? Why not make my headshot speak? The results are waiting for you to click on to the right. If you haven't already, check out my video introduction.
I have a new found admiration for all the vloggers who make it look so easy. I thought it was a unique opportunity to introduce myself and the freshly painted blog with a video. Kind of like a Grand Re-Opening of sorts.
I don't want to make any claims, but I haven't ever seen someone do this before. Usually it's one or the other: a text blog or a video blog. I'm hoping to find the time to integrate the two. And to do it often.
MY BLOG was in A FOG!!! or How to Customize Movable Type Templates - the easy way
For the past 2 days, I've been trying to undo an attempt to spruce up my blog. It was a disaster! HTML and I are mortal enemies. What you see around this post is the result of battling both HTML's unreadable language (I know, it's not THAT hard) and CSS's proprietary nature.
I consulted all my closest sources (thanks Jimmy, Stu and Brent) and even put a question out into the LinkedIn cosmos, but to no real avail. You would think that there would be endless posts by bloggers using Movable Type ("the most difficult blogging software to customize") with template code and style sheets, but NO. Just the opposite is true. What there is is a lot of inside speak about tags and headers and such. You have to have a working knowledge of HTML and CSS to understand and perhaps if I did, I would've had this thing back up and sailing in an hour instead of the 2 days it took me.
Then I finally came across this STYLE GENERATOR! It took a few tries of customizing to get the CSS that worked, but this is the "code generating savior" to all people like me who find HTML a daunting enigma.
(IMPORTANT: Before you go changing your code, open a Stickie, Word Pad or Doc and paste the old code into it. If I would have done this, I would not have been in this situation in the first place. Once you have all the code in a safe place, do what you want, because you can always go back! )
Once you have generated the code, paste it into the template called "STYLE SHEET". Check all your templates, Go to the pull-down menu and "REFRESH TEMPLATES" & "REBUILD TEMPLATES". I don't think both steps are necessary, but that's what I did. I then clicked "REBUILD SITE". Refresh the blog and voila!! A "new" blog.
After that worked, it was time to try and tweak the HTML again. The "Monthly Archive" was above the "Recent Posts" and "Categories" was after that and there was no field to insert a picture. I opened the MAIN INDEX template and found the blocks of HTML that mentioned the aforementioned sections and started re-arranging (cut and paste) them in the order I preferred. The "Search" field seems to hold all the info for the column and couldn't be moved easily without messing the whole column up, so I left it there. I also decided to paste the code that MT generates when you upload a picture with the "Search" code. It worked!!
I hope this info helps others like me who are not a programmer by any stretch of the imagination.
** obviously some of this has changed since I first publish this post. The search box doesn't hold the info for the column. The column info was just directly above it. Your best bet is to have someone that can come over and decipher the code. This will work if you find yourself in a bind like I was. Good luck.
I just had to show this little jewel off. After all, this is all supposed to be about movies, right? I promise this will be the last posting about "Chocolate Rain". Like all great memes, they need to fade away to make room for the next one.
The old T.V. looks to the new T.V. for it's leads. I guess if they can't beat us, they're going to join us. SIGH.
What's the difference between then and now? He says, "9.11"!!! And he NEVER equated 9.11 and Iraq, right? The lies and contradictions never end. And with such a straight face.
What does "Chocolate Rain" mean? How about "Vanilla Snow"?
Can 5,518,225 people be wrong?
Tay Zonday's performance ran long on the Jimmy Kimmel Show and bumped Matt Damon. It's a great day when a Hollywood superstar gets bumped by an internet grad student celebrity. Sometimes I really love the here and now. I think what made this video so ubiquitous is trying to figure out the meaning of "Chocolate Rain".
Whereas, the meaning of "Vanilla Snow" is a little clearer:
We just received a tip that the source code for the Facebook main index page has been leaked and published on a blog called Facebook Secrets. There are at least two possible ways that the source code got out - the first is that a Facebook developer has sent it out, or the more likely option that a security hole or other method has been used on either one of the Facebook servers or in their source code repository to reveal the code. The blog that published the code only has a single post on it, so it was created exclusively to publish this code - meaning that whoever is behind this both isn’t taking credit for the hole and doesn’t want to be associated with it. While there is no certain way to verify if the code is actually from Facebook, by taking a quick look through the code and by double-checking some paths that have been referenced, we can say with some certainty that this seems to be both real and also a recent version of the main Facebook page.
There are a number of clear ramifications here. The first is that the code can be used by outsiders to better understand how the Facebook application works, for the purposes of finding further security holes or bugs that could be exploited. Since Facebook is a closed source application, without access to the code security holes are usually found through a process of black-box testing, whereby an external party will probe the application in an attempt to work out how the application behaves and to try and find potential race conditions. In closed source applications it is common that developers rely on the closed nature of the application to obfuscate poor design elements and the structure of the application. An attacker getting access to the source code more often than not leads to further security holes being discovered. It is for these reasons that it is often claimed that open source software is more secure than closed source software, since there are many more eyes auditing the code and obfuscation can’t be used as a security measure.
The second implication with this leak is that the source code reveals a lot about the structure of the application, and the practices that Facebook developers follow. From just this single page of source code a lot can be said and extrapolated about the rest of the Facebook application and platform. For instance, the structure doesn’t follow any object oriented development practices, and it seems that the application is one large PHP file with a large number of custom functions living in the same namespace (they also seem to be using the Smarty templating engine).
This leak is not good news for Facebook, as it raises the question of how secure a Facebook users private data really is. If the main source code for a site can be leaked, then it can be said that almost anything is possible. Facebook has become such a success and has such a high profile that it has become a magnet for attacks against its systems. Most large scale applications suffer a breach at some point or another, since the odds are always stacked in favor of attackers, but companies can respond in a number of ways and the hope here is that Facebook will handle this situation gracefully. I don’t doubt that Facebook will pursuit this case with a lot of energy to both find the cause of why the code has leaked as well as to find who was responsible. They will also need to take some very quick short term measures to mitigate the risk to users since you can bet that right this minute there are hundreds of potential attackers pouring through the leaked code and probing their systems. At a quick glance, I know that I can see some obvious things in the code that both reveal certain hidden aspects of the platform and give a potential attacker a good head start.
Last month we sent out a mass email asking for help qualifying an episode of ReelerTV Weekly for New TeeVee's Pier Screening event. Even though we had one of the highest ratings and view count, our episode was a little too long and we didn't quite qualify. They're having another screening this month and we would really like to get in, but we need help. Please go to their website: screenings.newteevee.com/ and find our video titled, "ReelerTV @ Tribeca Film Festival #06". Click it, watch it (if you haven't already seen it) and if you don't mind registering (should be quick) you can vote. We suggest 5 stars, but we're a little biased.
While you're there, if you like reading web 2.0, online video and tech stuff, click around New TeeVee. It's part of a larger web community called GigaOm. It's all my daily reading.
Here's some details below about what the Pier Screening series is all about.
August 29 Pier Screenings: Citizen News
We’re closing out our summer San Francisco Pier Screenings series, and are bringing the event back to the pier. For the month of August, we're soliciting contributions in the category of "citizen news." What does that mean? Any non-fiction, short-form video created that tells a story about something out there in the universe.
Could be a documentary, could be a news spot, could be an interview, could be a cellphone-cam clip of an important event. Please keep it under five minutes and make sure you own the rights. We're looking for compelling videos that showcase a unique perspective or analysis.
We’ll be judging the videos this month based on number of views, votes cast, and stars received on the NewTeeVee Pier Screenings site. The top six videos will be shown at the live event on August 29 on a large 16-foot outdoor screen at a pier in San Francisco. The live audience at the event will choose the top three winners for the night. Metacafe will promote the top three audience winners from the live event on its front page, and Fabrik will be giving away high capacity hard drives (think 1 terabyte).
Clever little word, "hiatus". Anyway, while we're on one with ReelerTV and in between them with "All God's Children", I thought I'd share some fun I've found online.
Independent Film Man
My latest favorite is Reid Rosefelt's song, "Independent Film Man". It's great that he included the lyrics. You can open the MP3 in another window, and read/sing/scarey-okee along. It has a real Cat Stevens/Gordon Lightfoot feel to it. Awesome!
This week's Pinch Hitter is Jeffrey Blitz, of "Rocket Science" fame featured below on ReelerTV.
Walk it out, Fosse!
I'm not a big fan of the song, but can't get over how in sync it is with Gwen Verdon and her Fosse moves. Who knew they had moves like that so long ago?
The doc interviews three punk rock moms and their kids twice, once in 1996 and again ten years later in 2006. The film marries the old footage with the new into an up-close and personal look at welfare, punk rock and parenting in America. The 1996 footage was shot on VHS and the current footage on mini-DV. The two stocks look great when cut together, particularly because of how the VHS footage truly captured the mid-90s feel.
Plum TV recently turned the cameras on Luci to feature her on their documentary series, "Doc Stock". Former editor for The Independent (RIP) and current editor for Paper magazine, Rebecca Carroll, graciously conducted the interview and we're anxiously waiting to see the show.
The Jerome Foundation was the same generous grant giver for "All God's Children" three years ago. Luci wrote a nice piece on our blog about the foundation and I share her sentiment whole-heartedly.
A Tribute to Two Masters, Rocket Science, J-Lo and Winona
This week's ReelerTV News reveals Film Forum's fall film slate, pays tribute to Bergman and Antonioni and discusses Picture NY's efforts to keep indie filmmaking cheap and easy in New York. We dropped in on Jeffrey Blitz to talk about his latest film, "Rocket Science" and Logan Hill from New York Magazine sits in the lobby to preview and review Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony's biopic, "El Cantante" and David Wain's biblical comedy, "The Ten". Enjoy.
