A DOC'S JOURNAL by Scott Solary

While Luci put together multiple festival submission packages, I made this:

After viewing the video, you'll see a series of suggested videos load into the bottom of the player. Hold your cursor over them to see their titles. Find the video titled "Why every girl should buy their boyfriend Wii fit". Click it. It used to be when you did this, you'd be transported to the YouTube page of that video, but now you stay on the page that you want to be on and watch other videos. Really cool! Someone's understanding something about embeddable distribution. That's Amanda Elend, MobLogic blogger and Wallstrip writer with hip-swingin' editor, Sean Smith. It was a light-hearted video response to this video:

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This is an awesome piece the regional network, SNN was running through the weekend of our screenings:

Here's an inciteful podcast from Noralil Ryan Fores who interviewed us for her excellent site ShortEnd Magazine: thoughts on independent film. To listen to the interview please click here: shortendmagazine.com/content/view/536/71
or find ShortEnd Magazine on iTunes.

From the Good Hard Working People blog:
She asked some really great questions, not only about All God's Children and our process, but also about other projects and our thoughts on documentaries and changes in that market in general.

We talk rather candidly about some of the obstacles and frustrations in making this film. It makes it sound a bit worse than the experience really was. At first I wasn't sure if it's such a good idea to talk about the struggles, because it may make us or our film look bad. But then I think that it's important to be honest with other makers and the audience: it's not all just fun or easy and we all go through difficult times with our projects. It's probably one of the bigger frustrations when you think to everyone else it's a piece of cake and you may be the only one struggling.

When talking about how "ill-prepared" we were or how difficult it was to conduct the interviews with the abuse survivors because of how emotional it would be for us, I missed to emphasize that a lot of the difficulty came from realizing that this was causing pain to the interviewees and that we were lacking the psychological training to know if we were handling this and their stories well.

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I returned to New York to my job, but Luci was able to stay for the rest of the festival. While there, she did several more interviews with local press. I'll post the links and videos when we get them. She did web, radio and TV! Here's some highlights. James Israel, of indieWIRE, gave us a shout out in his summation of Sarasota and Michael Tully blogged some kind words and awesome photos of our panel and screening.

Being interviewed for local TV

Enjoying the nightlife.

and Florida's west coast sunset

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FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: 'ALL GOD'S CHILDREN'
Joel Rozen
Published Sunday, April 6, 2008 at 11:58 a.m.

It was hardly the study abroad experience their parents thought they were having.

"All God's Children"

Directors: Scott Solary and Luci Westphal. 63 min. 3:30 p.m. April 6. Hollywood 20. A-

"There was no place to run, there was no place to hide," says American Rich Darr, of his childhood in West Africa.

Growing up missionary kids in the 1960s, Darr and his siblings were exposed to a world of routine beatings, playground humiliation and sexual manipulation. They weren't alone.

These, they allege in a sensitive new documentary by Scott Solary and Luci Westphal that premiered Saturday at the Sarasota Film Festival,, were among the horrors endured by countless students at Mamou Alliance Academy.

The parochial boarding school for missionary kids in Guinea had served as a sort of practical childcare system for members of the evangelical group Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA) during their time overseas.

Some kids were raped. Others whipped with belts until they bled. One woman recalls nights of fearing for her life.

For years, the abuse inflicted by Mamou educators and dorm staff was unknown even to parents. But decades later, as alumni began to uncover repressed trauma, many realized they were victims of a perverse educational system.

"All God's Children" gives them the voice they claim they never had. Drawing from personal photographs, home movies, old Super-8 footage and a bevy of interviews with Mamou alumni, Solary and Westphal's film is sad yet unflinching, and demonstrates what can happen when unsuspecting parents put too much faith in an institution. The tone of the film may be more than just cautionary, however: It could be humanitarian.

Mamou was shut down in 1971, but of the roughly 110 missionary boarding schools still in operation throughout the world, the film's subjects cite 21 accused of similar acts of abuse. More troubling, while missionary school abuse may be endemic, legal action is seldom taken against those inflicting the pain. It certainly never was at Mamou — the C&MA still barely acknowledges the "psychological, physical and spiritual" abuse they once backed. (In one memorable scene, International Ministries Vice President Bob Fetherlin seems to grasp at straws for an explanation. "We were slower to act than we could've been," he says. To this day, not a single Mamou staff member has faced any serious consequences.)

The strength of "All God's Children" lies in the way it captures the emotional ripples cast by the abuse. At a post-screening Q&A attended by the filmmakers and six of their subjects, one viewer was particularly intrigued by the parents' reactions when they learned about what had happened at Mamou.

"It was an ongoing grief for them," said Diane Darr, Rich’s older sister and a also a victim. "And it still is."

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Me, Jeff Marks and Adam Elend hold Lindsay Campbell and we all scream. All we needed was the fourth producer, Clark Caldwell, to complete our MobLogic crew, but he had returned to New York earlier that day.

Karina Longworth and myself. I know the photographer took a better pic, but this is what I could find.

Here's some more

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I've put off posting about this until everything was in place, but at last I can blog that "All God's Children" will have its world premiere! And it's in my home state of Florida. I feel like I've probably told everyone that reads this blog the good news, but wanted to make sure it gets its own post and that the words of happiness and thanks are recorded in the annals of blog history.

If you scroll down the right of my hompepage and in the Categories section and click on the "All God's Children" link, you'll see how long I have been keeping record of the progress of our film. Basically, right after we received the Jerome Foundation New York Media Arts Grant. We had interviewed the Beardslee family, but the Darrs and Shellrudes were yet to come.

I feel very fortunate to have been on the minds of the indieWIRE guys when they were thinking who to invite into the new world of blogs they would host. The only thing cinematic going on in my life was the doc, so I figured I'd use the blog platform to serve as a journal for the films production, hence the name, a doc's journal.

Regardless of why you make films, after you've shot and edited and often before, you begin thinking about who will see it and where. We thought we were finished many times before and have entertained many festivals as its' first screening. We've even contemplated the sad realities of not having that opportunity at all. But then comes the kind words of Tom Hall telling you that your film, "is a powerful story of abuse and the path to recovery and we would be honored to show the film at the festival." And we knew Sarasota was perfect. We have only heard rave reviews of the staff, screening venues, accommodations and hospitality from filmmakers and industry alike.

So we will have two screenings within the opening weekend of the festival: Saturday, April 5th at 2:30 and again on Sunday, April 6th at 3:30. All but two of the participants in the film (as well as their families) will be attending. Most of my family and even a posse of our dear old Florida friends will be attending. There is also rumor that there will be a press conference. And because the denomination has a large retired population living in Florida, we may even some controversy. We could only hope.

We are utterly ecstatic to be premiering our film at this years Sarasota Film Festival. We think it's a perfect fit and an awesome place for the film to begin this new leg of its journey.

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We successfully launched our new show, MobLogic on Friday. If you haven't seen our beautiful website, CLICK HERE. While you're there, please check out our archive, subscribe to receive daily updates and leave us a comment on your thoughts. We really want to be reflective of what the people are thinking so let us know. If you want to know what makes Lindsay the smartest and most talented actor/host in the world, read this interview in CNET. Here's some other press: Silicon Alley Insider got the inside scoop, followed by New TeeVee. Luci also has a great post at the Good Hard Working People blog.

I can't say enough about all the people I work with. Talented and driven would be a gross understatement. Check out our "ABOUT" page to see the faces behind the machine.

We have a Flickr page that we're trying to populate with pics from our misadventures and I'm trying to Twitter often. If you want to follow my silliness, search Scott Solary.

I've met a lot of filmmakers who will also be in Sarasota screening their films as well as some nice festival programmers who expressed interest in seeing "All God's Children" so keep your fingers crossed that they will like it enough to program in their festival.

We're having our launch party today at 3. I'm hoping the weather holds out. I'll have to post more later when I can catch my breath.

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This year's SXSW fest is going to be a busy one for me. I'll be wearing several hats throughout the week.

First, we'll be launching MobLogic.TV on March 7th. I'll be producing a show on Friday in and around SXSW to air on Monday. We'll overnight it and have the guys in New York cut it to air on Monday. HERE'S OUR FACEBOOK PAGE.

I've been instrumental in organizing the party for Sunday. Our decision to have ours at 3:00 has proven to be a good one. There seems to be 5 other parties happening that day, but they're all starting at 6:00 or later. We'll be draining our last margarita by then.

Secondly, I've written about the Exquisite Corpse Filmmaking Project I'm a part of and on Tuesday, I'll be in front of an unknown amount of people talking about my process of making my 4-minute contribution. I shot my part 4 weeks ago and handed off my minute to Scott Colthorp a week later. VIEW MY LAST MINUTE HERE! I have to say, I'm really proud of my piece. I can't talk about it too much yet, because other filmmakers aren't allowed to know. Shhhh!

Thirdly, I'll be going down to Austin this year to promote "All God's Children". We received great news last Monday night: our film was accepted to the 2008 Sarasota Film Festival and will be screened twice between the 5 - 8th of April! We are so excited by this news. It will be our official World Premiere and we can think of no other festival that would be better than Sarasota. I hope to meet some people who are also planning on being in Florida in April that will come support our film.

We have lots of family and friends in and around Florida who are planning to attend. There is also a sizable C&MA community there as well. It should be a full screening with a lively Q&A afterwards.

The festival makes its formal announcement very soon. It'll get its own post after that. (and I'm sure plenty more surrounding the experience). This is the beginning of yet another leg of a long trek with this film. One we've been looking forward to for quite some time now.

Somewhere between all that I had a birthday. It was a wonderfully relaxed couple of days with friends, food and shopping.

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Last Wednesday night, Luci and I went to see the Raveonettes play at our local venue, Southpaw. The opening band, Gliss, was really cool and had the kind of sound you'd expect for a band opening for the Raveonettes. However, the second band - Nicole Atkins and the Sea were the exact opposite. I have no idea what they were doing on this bill. To keep it short and as polite as I can be, suffice it to say they were underwhelming, melodramatic and ultimately, boring. They totally took the wind out of the show's sails before the Raveonettes came on. Apparently they have a following and lots of people came out just to see them, but then fled Southpaw once the Raveonettes hit the stage and the legitimate sound of rock hit their tender little ears.

Someone did a little recording of the show. Here's their clip:

Last time I saw the Raveonettes, it was just Sune and Sharin with acoustic guitars and a tambourine. This time, they were plugged in and the drummer played a 2-piece kit to a click track. I sincerely hate bands playing to pre-recorded material. Once it's introduced, I begin to doubt the reality of everything I hear. To be fair, they were really singing and playing, but there were times when a bass line or a drum fill would kick in and it obviously wasn't happening live. Beyond that, they put on a great show and the crowd dug it.

On Friday, a group of us went to a sold-out screening of "Control" at Film Forum. I was really impressed. The cinematography is stunning, but expected being a photographer's film. The acting is also spot-on. I do wish the band's characters were more developed. I was also expecting to be more in the head of an introspective depressive, whereas, I saw the Ian Curtis of "Control" as a guy who was driven over the edge by marrying too early and being torn between two lovers. Despite what I wanted or hoped for, the film totally works on every level. Luci summed it up best on the walk out of the theater when she said, "I've been waiting for that since I was a teenager."

Check out the throat singing styling of Yat-Kha as they pay homage to Joy Division with their unique cover of "Love Will Tear Us Apart"

In case you missed it, we dedicated a special noir edition of ReelerTV to Anton Corbijn and his debut masterpiece:

I've been able to see 2 out of the 3 films I really wanted to see when I was in Toronto, but didn't. Would somebody please program "My Winnepeg" so I can complete my quest?!?

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So I didn't get to see David Cronenberg's latest film, "Eastern Promises" in his home town of Toronto, but I did get to see him at the beautiful DGA Theater here in New York tonight.

Although it's very hard to tell from the picture, he sat and talked quite a while afterward. Kinda looks like Bill Maher talking to Sigmund Freud.

I liked the movie, but I wasn't as impressed as I hoped I would be. It just never quite reached the tension I think it was trying for. Great performances, story, direction and effects though. All very Cronenberg.

I really wish I could embed this video of a Cockatoo dancing, but alas, not everyone is into sharing. Too bad, because it's simply amazing. But since I can't here's a still to tempt you -

And the link: CLICK HERE!

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Despite a very late start, we were able to shoot, edit and upload the latest episode of ReelerTV.

This week ReelerTV provides a glimpse into the upcoming 45th New York Film Festival. "The Warriors", Coney Island, Harvey Weinstein and “Padre Nuestra” all make the news. We sit down with Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman, co-stars of Wes Anderson’s latest film, “The Darjeeling Limited.” Lisa Rosman from Flavorpill joins us in the lobby to talk about the grown-up side of Wes Anderson, how Ira Sachs blew it, the Cohen Brothers’ success and what’s wrong with Noah Baumbach. Enjoy!

An interesting aside:

My first “job” in New York was an internship in the development department at the now defunct, Good Machine. "Happiness" was making it's way to the video shelves and "Crouching Tiger" was being written. My immediate supervisor was Dan Beers. He used to have the VHS copy of “The Warriors” on his desk. He could and would defend it as the greatest movie of all time, or at least, one of the greatest. Dan was also a huge fan of “Rushmore” and Wes Anderson. Last I heard, Dan was working with Wes Anderson and had an Associate Producer cred on “The Life Aquatic.”

It struck me as an odd coincidence when Stu brought the news item of “The Warriors” into an episode so strongly latent with Wes Anderson’s new film, “The Darjeeling Limited.” It made me realize that I haven’t seen Dan in a very long time and I'm sure he'd really like today's episode.

This is still one of my favorite openings of a film ever:

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In this final installment of ReelerTV from Toronto, we talk with filmmaking legend, Peter Bogdanovich who's in Toronto to introduce John Ford’s film, “Bucking Broadway.” The recently found negative has been restored and a brand new print has been struck. Karina wraps up the Spout reviews with her Toronto regrets and a few thoughts on “Elizabeth: The Golden Age.” ReelerTV will return to it’s usual weekly format beginning on Wednesday.

What a cool gig this was. I'm seldom starstruck, but Mr. Bogdanovich is just so calm, cool and collected, I was in awe. You can see my camera shaking a little bit. Another one of my Top-10 directors crossed off of my "I Want to Meet Them" list.

This was one of the most inspirational films to me so long ago. It's like a filmmaking manual in directing, acting, blocking and photography. Watch and learn:

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ReelerTV continues its coverage of the Toronto International Film Festival. In today's special episode we have an interview with legendary media personality and writer, Phil Donahue. He is in Toronto with the documentary, "Body of War" that he co-directed with Ellen Spiro. The film will have its world premiere tonight on September 11th, the day that moved Iraq war veteran and subject of "Body of War", Tomas Young to enlist in the Army in the first place. Karina reviews another one of the Iraq-themed films at the festival, "Operation Filmmaker."

Here is Keith Obermann reporting Bush's true plans for the future of American troops in Iraq:

Can't we just arrest him for war crimes now?

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In this episode ReelerTV goes retro in black and white in tribute to the forthcoming biopic about Joy Division singer, Ian Curtis. The Reeler talks to legendary rock photographer turned director Anton Corbijn about the making of “Control” and Karina Longworth wraps it up with her thoughts on the atypical rock film. Enjoy!

The clip teases the song, "Transmission". Here's a live performance brought to you by the fine folks at YouTube:

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I'm heading back to New York bright and early in the morning. Toronto's been nice and all, but it's not New York. There are too many little quirks here for me to ever be comfortable enough to stay. Then again, I didn't see nearly enough of it to fairly judge.

We had a full day of production doing three interviews, intros and outros for two shows and the last installment with Karina. What we did today will be the content for the next 3 daily shows. I would have to call today "legendary" for 3 reasons. Two of them, will be apparent in the last 2 daily episodes of ReelerTV (Tues. and Wed.) Not to slight Anton Corbin at all. He's a legend in his own right. And the last reason was a run-in with Mr. Pretty Woman himself, Richard Gere. We were getting off the elevator to interview legend #2 as he (#3) was getting out of the next car. Kinda cool.

Because I didn't see nearly enough films, but instead, spent the majority of my time producing the daily videos, I feel like Toronto was more of a tour of the most posh, exquisite and expensive hotels than an International Film Festival. For some reason, publicist seem to think that a hotel room provides the best interview space. They are usually nondescript and could be anywhere in the world as far as the camera is concerned. Despite all that, we did every one of our interviews in hotel rooms or lobbies. Oh well, at least they were nice ones. This is the main reason we do the opening and close of the show outside. It gives a feeling of a specific location to each show.

Here's a moody shot of the lobby in the swankest of them all, The Fairmont York. The picture doesn't really do it justice. (I didn't take it)

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As expected I was unable to see any more films due to shooting and editing. The timing has just been bad. The plus side is that the films I wanted to see will be coming to New York's screens and soon after, Netflix.

Back in Brooklyn, Luci has diligently finished digitizing all the footage for her upcoming doc, "All's Well and Fair." Somehow while attaining that feat, she is also keeping ReelerTV alive and well amongst all the outlets (too many to link to) . She's the epitome of work ethic.

I was still exhausted today from Thursday's night late edit . I finally got to sleep around 4am, but had to be up and taping the Scott Hicks interview by 10am. You can see the results of that interview in episode 2 just below this post.

There won't be a show on Sunday, but we'll return on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to wrap up the festival coverage. Not to take away from the first two, but I am especially excited about these last 3 episodes. You won't want to miss them.

My exhaustion was compounded on Friday by a couple of parties. The great people at Renew Media, namely our friend, Brian Newman, had an early celebration. There, I was able to catch up with a few people I haven't seen in a while, namely film critic, Anthony Kaufman, Florida Film Festival's Programming Director, Matthew Curtis and NewFest's programmer Basil Tsiokos.

For you cigar fans, there was a vast display of Cubans for sale on the patio. I took this picture for my cigar-loving friends to salivate over:

After a quick bite to eat, I walked to the Control party. I was expecting to hear lots of Joy Division and New Order, but, alas just the typical 80's party music. Despite how tired I was, I was glad I went. I made a handful of new friends. Doing so much work at home lately, it was great to be able to get out and socialize. I also don't go to too many film events in New York, so I was happy to be able to see everybody face to face in the offline world.

Regarding my review of "Captain Mike Across America" check this post on the Toronto blog site that has nothing but praise. Biased?

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ReelerTV begins its daily coverage live from the Toronto International Film Festival. In this first episode we go to the red carpet for Neil Jordan's latest film, "The Brave One" and Karina Longworth from Spout Blog gives her recommendations. Tune in daily for more Toronto Film Festival coverage. Enjoy!

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The first day of the festival started for me with a screening of Michael Moore's latest doc, "Captain Mike Across America."

A QUICK REVIEW:
The film follows "Captain Mike" across the country as he tries to get out the youth vote to oust George Bush 5 weeks before the 2004 election. His failure to sway the election is acknowledged in a lengthy title card sequence that opens the film. What follows is Michael Moore's brand of the tent revival with himself as the charismatic evangelic leader as he speaks to college campuses across America. There's lots of funny moments and great music performances by Eddie Vedder and Steve Earle. The film fails to give any new information to the converted and comes across as a little self-absorbed. It's documentary melodrama at its finest. It's not hard to let your emotional buttons get pushed if the Iraq war, the Bush administration and the lazy mainstream media already sadden and anger you. He obviously cheaped out on the photography and more than half of the film is lo-res. No digital projector in the world can make this film look good. In the end, I enjoyed it, but felt that it was nowhere near its potential. All it needed was a lot more money and a little more foresight. Weinstein Co. is sure to make a mint off this one. Wait for the DVD, this is no Fahrenheit 911. (did someone say Bit Torrent?)

Production of ReelerTV got in the way of me seeing "Control" and "My Winnepeg" (see previous post below), but we have a great episode that I'm really proud of. "My Winnepeg" is playing again on Saturday night and "Control" is being released in a couple of weeks in NY so I'm sure to see at least one in the near future.

We went to an unruly red carpet to cover "The Brave One", Neil Jordan's new revenge flick set in NY starring Jodi Foster and Terrence Howard. I had to yell at a Belgian videographer to stop hitting me. I nearly grabbed his camera and pulled him off his step-ladder perch. The "funny" thing was, if I can be snotty for a second, is that despite their HD gear, step-ladder(used for a better view) and obnoxiously long microphone, they were unable to glean a single interview while we, with our unassuming Panasonic DVX were able to get time with Neil Jordan and Terrence Howard. You can see their bombastic yellow wind muff shoving in to our frame.

Here she is trying to shove it in Jodi Foster's face!

They did, however, provide us with light. Jodie Foster's Army of publicists kept her walking at a brief pace past us. We vowed to never do another red carpet again. Let's hope we can stick to it.

Watch the episode in the post above.

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During a day before the festival begins and a couple of days before any production happens, I had a chance to go for a solo walk through some of the hippest sections of Toronto. We had beautiful weather making for a relaxing day. I walked up and down Yonge and Bloor Streets and wound up at the By the Way Cafe for lunch and a local pint.

We should start production for ReelerTV on Thursday or Friday and have the first episode posted Friday or Saturday morning. It all depends on interviewee availability. We have some great interviews lined up with some legendary filmmakers.

Tomorrow I hope to be able to see some press screenings. I have to wait until 5 minutes before the projector rolls due to the pass I have, but after the miscommunication(s) with the press office, I'm happy to have a pass at all.

I am going to try and see:

Michael Moore's new one "Captain Mike Across America"

Anton Corbijn's Ian Curtis biopic, "Control"

and end with a personal hero of mine, Guy Maddin's latest, "My Winnepeg"

I'll post my thoughts tomorrow as to how it all went. There's a chance I won't be able to get into any of the screenings, so keep your fingers crossed for me. Unlike Sundance, where I only found the time to see one film, Toronto is looking like it might be more of a "festival" for me.

If I have the time and can get in, a major highlight will be watching the latest David Cronenberg film, "Eastern Promises!"

I thoroughly enjoyed "A History of Violence" and "Existenz" remains on my top 10 list and on my shelf in its old school VHS format.

A few Toronto observations:

There are little aggressive bees everywhere. They are quite pesky, but don't seem to mean any harm. I was told by a waiter that there's no need to be afraid. I have a pure hatred for flying bugs, flies first and bees a close second.

Torontoians (I made that up) don't blow their horns nearly as much as New Yorkers (but who does), but they seem to drive rather haphazardly. I saw one driver nearly run another car off the freeway right before a semi almost ran us off the same road. All of this happened without horn blowing.

Obviously, I'm thrilled to be here and look forward to all the films I'll get to see and all the fun I'm sure to have, but like everything, I have a few complaints:

The BIGGEST of all: Sponsored by Starbucks! So now I have to wear a Starbucks branded lanyard. At least it ain't Sanka.

There are a LOT of films. Here's a couple fest-goers trying to decipher the slate at one of the three box offices:

Their is NO signage to look for if you need to know where anything is. The lack of billboards and ads everywhere is a little refreshing, but annoying when you're looking for a locale hidden in a mall.

I ended my day with dinner at Spring Roll, one of the many Thai restaurants in the area. It was amazing. Stu and I were joined by Scott Tobias and Noel Murray, film critics for The Onion's A.V. Club.

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I'm very excited to be going to Canada to cover the Toronto Film Festival for the Reeler. Our weekly show will become a daily for 5-6 days. It will have a similar format to the Tribeca episodes, except this time, we have Karina Longworth from Spout Blog wrapping up each episode with S.T. VanAirsdale discussing the festival's films.

This will be my first time to Toronto and I'm really looking forward to it. I've heard only good things. I imagine I'm going to be super busy shooting, editing and encoding daily episodes. Luci will be holding down the NY headquarters and posting the videos in all the usual places for your viewing pleasure.

OTHER NEWS:

We began to work the Super 8 footage into "All God's Children" the other day. It's going to be a big improvement. While looking for potential places to overlay b-roll, Luci and I started playing with the structure of the ending. An edit here and a copy-paste there and it feels like a whole new film. Luci is going to continue to work on it while I'm gone. We hope to have it locked and finished soon after I get back to New York.

My Miss South Carolina video has hit another milestone: it's over 2 million views! I still can't believe the amount of people clicking in.

Check out the new Google Earth feature, Google Sky:

With some camera moves and screen capture functionality, we could see the birth of a new sci-fi filmmaking movement. Maybe it'll be called Galacticore.

Posted by Scott Solary at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We did it. We managed to create, shoot, edit and post 11 four-minute+ shows in 11 days. This was also an experiment in our capabilities of viral campaigning. Through hosting the video on two places (Blip.tv and You Tube), utilizing our existing blogs, websites and mailing lists, we were able to get over 4,500 hits within a 10 day launch. These aren't huge numbers, but considering the short amount of time and small scale of our operation (2 people), we're quite proud of all our efforts. Today's episode doesn't count and we're sure the numbers will grow in time as these films are released and reviewed.

We hope to have more exciting news about our web 2.0 endeavors soon. Meanwhile, we'll anxiously wait for an acceptance letter from a festival delivering the good news about "All God's Children". We know it's out there.

In the meantime, enjoy Eva Mendes chatting it up with S.T. "The Reeler" VanAirsdale. Luci and I saw her movie, "Live!" last night and it is awesome. The film is directed by multiple oscar award-winning documentarian, Bill Guttentag. Despite how much you think you are above being interested in witnessing the demise of others, this film pulls you in and unlocks and excites your inner voyeur to the point of guilt. But that's the point.

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Posted by Scott Solary at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Charlie Bartlett" stars Anton Yelchin, Robert Downey Jr., Hope Davis, Kat Dennings, Tyler Hilton, Ishan Davé, Megan Park, Jonathan Malen and Jake Epstein.

I love the outer spaciness of the location in this one. Enjoy.

We saw a sold out screening of "Descent" last night. I'm just going to say "Powerful" and I'll be very interested in what the real critics have to say.

Posted by Scott Solary at 08:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We're almost through with our Tribeca daily video run for ReelerTV. Two more to come.

Here's supercool Talia Lugacy hanging at the former Screening Room's bar on a windy New York afternoon. We hope we'll be able to get tickets to tonight's show. Judging by the illogical logistics for press to get a ticket to a public screening, we probably have a snowball's chance of seeing the film tonight.

We were finally able to go see some movies today. This morning we saw the press screening of "The Killing of John Lennon" and later in the afternoon, we saw the public screening of "Golden Door". John Lennon was a little long, with too slow of an ending for the morning, but seeing Martin Scorsese introduce "Golden Door" was an awesome surprise.

Having press passes does have its privileges. We got a sneak peak at the screener for"King of Kong" and it rocks. Not your typical contest doc. Whenever you get a chance, check it out. Oh yeah, in case you missed the show: ReelerTV #6

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Today's show is with Marc Klein discussing his film, "Suburban Girl" with Alec "Voicemail" Baldwin and Sarah "Buffy" Michelle "Slayer" Gellar. The film's party was one of the nicest this year: not too crowded, complete open bar and gift bags with the novel that the film is based on, "The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing" in it.

Posted by Scott Solary at 12:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The interesting aside of "King of Kong" is that Sundance didn't/wouldn't program the film because of "Chasing Ghost" (the other doc about the arcade geek subculture) so they played Slamdance instead where the film got picked up by Picturehouse and Seth now has a 2nd picture deal as well.

I think this one breezes by. Enjoy.

While the daily indieWIRE wasn't being sent over the weekend, we were still posting videos. Scroll down for our weekend posts. We're Blip.tv stars!!!

Posted by Scott Solary at 02:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have no problem with Korean gangster flicks, but I have to confess I'm more drawn by Grace Park's presence because of my geeky obsession with Cylons and Battlestar Galactica. Judge all you want. Us fans have to wait for MONTHS to see more of our favorite outerspace family so films like West 32nd give us a chance to get that home-y feeling.

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Posted by Scott Solary at 01:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

indieWIRE hosted an amazing party @ the Apple store last night that we HAD to go to. I saw so many friendly faces that I hadn't seen since Sundance. DJ Jazzy Jeff and the open bar kept me out way too late. Despite the early call and the torrential downpour, yours truly was staking his claim @ a press junket between the Associated Press (AP) and the BBC for a slew of films that are in this year's fest.

Today's video features Fred Durst (yet another Jacksonville, FL native) and Jesse Eisenberg. Both guys were very cool and honest. Despite my pleas, Stu wouldn't ask Fred if he was in the film biz for the nookie, and if so, is movie nookie is different than music nookie. I guess we'll never know. Enjoy the show.

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Posted by Scott Solary at 02:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another hurried, yet fun edit for ReelerTV. Fredi is a great swiss gentleman as well as a self-professed magician and Theo proved to be the atypical "star prodigy". Great fun all around despite the uptight, authoritative Tribeca FF peeps. Weird, they are.

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Posted by Scott Solary at 02:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We wrapped the 2nd video for ReelerTV rather quickly today.

The charismatic actor turned director, Diego Luna, was very eloquent and entertaining making this an easy and fun edit. Enjoy.

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Posted by Scott Solary at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We did it. We got the first episode up in time for the festival's launch. Hope you enjoy it.

Bruce, "Chops" director, is living in my hometown of Jacksonville, Florida. The band he follows in the film is from their as well.

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Posted by Scott Solary at 08:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Check out the teaser video we here at Good Hard Working People made for the Reeler. We'll be producing daily videos for S.T. VanAirsdale and the gang during this year's Tribeca Film Festival. And we swear, we'll have a slicker website up soon. In the meantime, check out our Blog.

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Posted by Scott Solary at 03:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, I hope everyone that reads this was watching all the action over at the Good Hard Working People Blog. Obviously, I didn’t/couldn’t keep this one up, but Luci did an amazing job of posting up-to-the-minute coverage of our (iW) video coverage.

My first visit to Park City during Sundance was surreal to make an understatement. I’ve never worked so hard for so many hours while at the same time had so much fun in an atmosphere that was so positive and creative. It was a truly unique time. My first film was the midnight premiere of Crispin Glover’s “It is Fine, Everything is Fine!” at the Egyptian Theater on Main Street. He set a ticket aside for me for a sold out show.

Some interview highlights include: being up close and personal with Parker Posey and Zoe Casavettes on a chaise lounge, listening to the Dude predict the future of distribution, trying to coax Crispin Glover into a simple sentence for his complex ideas while sitting in fur covered club loungers, buying the very last copy of Christine Vachon’s book and having her sign it, capturing Ira Glass’ rant with Annie Sundberg’s impromptu interview, letting Brett Morgan know how influential The Kid Stays in the Picture’s graphics were to our film and him truly appreciating it, meeting everyone else that we interviewed as a member of indieWIRE and given immediate street cred because these guys really are that cool.

Even though Utah was a great time, it is awesome to be back in New York. I never thought I’d miss humidity, but 2 weeks of nose bleeds and flaky skin will do that to you. And yes, I used lotion and saline…

So now with my feet back on the ground at sea level, we are finishing up the sound mix and hopefully have our color correct complete by next week before Luci heads out to Germany. It sounds amazing. The photos and Super 8 footage are now bristling with sound and life. It helps immensely with the pace and livens up the overall feeling of the film.

Posted by Scott Solary at 10:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)