Ellen Kuras is one of the best-known directors of photography in American independent film of the past 20 years. She has won the Sundance Film Festival’s cinematography prize three times. To list just a few of her credits, she shot Spike Lee’s 4 Little Girls, Bamboozled, He Got Game and Summer of Sam, Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and his new film, Be Kind Rewind, Jonathan Demme’s Neil Young: Heart of Gold and Mary Harron’s I Shot Andy Warhol.
Before she ever picked up a camera, she started working as a director on her first film about a Laotian family’s experiences in the United States. That was 23 years ago and now that film, Nerakhoon (The Betrayal), a gorgeous metaphoric meditation on immigrant displacement and loss, has its premiere at this year’s Sundance festival.
Kuras’s long-term project represents an extreme but distinct trend in documentary filmmaking toward films that take years. Festival director Geoffrey Gilmore noted at the beginning of the festival that fewer films were coming from the “professional class” of documentary makers and more from people with a personal investigation they were determined to share with the world.
Among the examples are fashion photographer Steve Sebring’s Patti Smith: Dream of Life, which took a dozen years, as the director befriended the rock star and poet from the mid-nineties, in the early years of her widowhood to the present. Katrina Browne, a social worker, took nine years to research her family’s history as slave traders before completing Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North. One of the three Canadian entries in the official documentary competition, The Women of Brukman, by Montreal director Isaac Isitan, follows the women workers who took over a clothing factory after Argentina’s economic collapse in 2001 and documents their legal and political battles for the past half-dozen years.
This one is for the prospective film student. How to find the right film school? Does location matter…Or should you go for the infrastructure (camera/lighting equipment, editing suites, studios)? Reputation does count a lot. In fact, many of the film schools from the old days are still gold…and the plethora of those that have sprung up now, might just confirm your worst fears.
1. Choose your vocation: You might be interested in just the technical side of filmmaking (see video editing, sound editing), or the creative side (set design, scripting) or both (production, direction!). Deciding your vocation in advance will help you decide the course you want to pursue.
2. Grab your course: Once you’ve decided what you really want to do (and I hope you decide that on the basis of what really interests you, and not what will earn you more)…its time to grab the course. Most film institutes offer dedicated short term courses in cinematography, video editing, sound engineering and acting respectively. If you like a bit of everything and/or are undecided on what you’d really like, then go for the comprehensive filmmaking course.
3. The Location: Will you be placing yourself thousands of miles from the place where you want to film your work? If you ultimately want to work in Hollywood you might want to aim for a California school so you can go ahead and begin building that network. If you want to work in Bollywood, nothing better than FTII at Pune.
4. Equipment and Facilities: decade ago, the equipment that a school could offer mattered a lot, but it’s not a lot to get worked up about today. After all, you can buy an HVX-200, a laptop and Final Cut Studio for a fraction of a year’s tuition at most film schools. You don’t want to go someplace that has crummy equipment, nor do you want to attend a school that lacks enough equipment to serve its students. You need good (film and video) cameras, sound equipment, lights, and editing stations. (Maybe not even the editing stations, if you already own one.) Beyond that, don’t get worked up about facilities and equipment.
5. Length of Program: Most programs are three years; some are two years. There may be a difference between what a school’s literature states and the reality though. Ask current students for the skinny on how long it takes for students to typically finish a program. It can be a positive thing, of course, to stay in school as long as you can.
Action! Every year, tens of thousands of hopefuls apply to film school to start a career behind the camera. If you’re of them, you probably dream of one of top five film schools – UCLA, NYU, the American Film Institute, Columbia and USC. (Aren’t film students big dreamers, after all?)
Of the five, USC and NYU are considered the top of the heap. USC is, both literally and figuratively, closer to Hollywood. Applicants may need Jedi mind tricks to gain admittance into this alma mater of George Lucas – the school accepts 150 undergrads out of 14,000 applicants annually. NYU, the home base of Miramax and Tribeca Productions, has an “indie” edge, personified by prominent grads like Spike Lee, Ang Lee, and Oliver Stone.
Collaboration tools is going to soon become a misnomer. The more mainstream, standard office applications and productivity tools start adding collaboration facilities to their apps the more collaboration will become part of what is expected by any digital work tool.
Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Communication – Graph credit: Ramius
This Sharewood Picnic contains a new collection of selected collaboration tools that I, and Nico Canali De Rossi have uncovered during our weekly searches for Kolabora. It includes tools to send large files to anyone, instant messenger gateways allowing you to connect simultaneously to all your favorite instant messaging networks and a couple of interesting tool to draw, annotate and share web page markups.
Here the list:
PipeBytes: Send files of any dimensions with no upload process
Globe7:VoIP software allows you to text-chat, video conference and transfer files
DrawHere: Draw on web-pages and share your annotated page via email
JKN: Online annotation tool allows you to add notes to web-pages and share them with people
TeamWork Live: Manage projects, share documents and collaborate with people online
IM History: Save your instant messaging conversation history online
Messenger FX: Web-based instant messenger lets you access MSN IM network
BigFileBox: Web-based file hosting service allows you to share files with others
PipeBytes
PipeBytes in a web-based tool that anyone can use to share files, with no size limitation. If you want to send a file, just click the “Send” button, browse for you file, and click “Upload”. You will be provided with a pick-up code, or simply with a pick-up URL, that will connect your and your friend’s computer to send the file directly, with no uploading process. Free to use, no registration needed. http://www.pipebytes.com/
Globe7
Globe7 is a free downloadable VoIP application that allows you to chat and talk with people. After you download it and register to the service, you can start adding other people to your contact list: you can chat, have video and audio calls, share pictures, transfer files, save the chat history, and also call landline phones at really cheap rates. Completely free to use, it is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux herehttp://www.globe7.com/downloadg7.php. http://www.globe7.com/
DrawHere
DrawHere takes a slightly different twist on the website annotation paradigm by allowing users to literally draw directly onto a website that they are visiting. Clicking on the bookmarklet opens up an image editing palette to the side of the screen. This palette features layers, opacity, brush size and a color spectrum. Annotated pages can be saved and shared by email or embedded into your blog. Different users annotations can be browsed through from a separate window. DrawHere can be activated via a bookmarklet, from the DrawHere website by entering the URL you want to draw on, and can even be included as a button on your web-page. Free http://drawhere.com/
JKN
JKN is a web-site that allows you to add notes on a web-page and to share them with anyone. After you insert the URL you want to annotate, you can decide how you want to share your notes with others (link, email or blog), and start typing on the selected page as it was a normal blank page. Then, depending on the sharing method you chose, you will be given a URL to share or you will be asked for your contacts’ emails. It is free to use and requires no registration. Beta. http://info.jkn.com/
TeamWork Live
TeamWork Live is a web-based project management and project collaboration tool that helps you run your projects more efficiently. All you need to get started is a web browser and an internet connection: you can manage projects, track tasks, share documents and files, collaborate with clients and remote teams. Completely free to use, requires registration. https://www.teamworklive.com/
IM History
IM History is a downloadable program that allows you to store all of your instant messaging conversations online, supporting AIM, MSN, Windows Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Skype and Miranda networks. All conversations will be saved and uploaded on a web-server that can be accessed through any web-browser. Free to download and use. http://www.im-history.com/
Messenger FX
Messenger FX is a web-based service that lets you access the MSN instant messaging network without having to install anything on your computer. The access is protected through encryption and the interface is available in multiple languages. There is no possibility to talk to contacts that are on other IM networks. Free to use. http://www.messengerfx.com
BigFileBox
BibFileBox is a web-based file hosting service that you can use to upload and share your files with other people. After you choose whether you want to upload a file using the Java drag-and-drop facility or the click-to-upload interface, you can upload as many files as you want and, when done, you can create “tokens” to give people permission to browse/edit your files. You can also choose the duration of the token. Free for up to 50 MB or see plan comparison. http://www.bigfilebox.com/
John Sawatsky, ESPN’s senior director of talent development, has tutored reporters, anchors and producers around the world. Since 1991, he has devoted all his time to teaching interviewing to professional journalists. ESPN asked him to assess the prospects for the upcoming “60 Minutes” interview of Roger Clemens.
Sawatsky’s assessment amounts to a lesson in interviewing technique (and rips Mike Wallace to shreds in the process). Fascinating reading.
My favorite part of the year-end (or year-beginning) “Best Of” lists is how these lists serve as a kind of aggregator for the movies that I should give my time to in the coming year. Let’s face it, if you live in the USA and you don’t live in New York or L.A. (I don’t), and/or you didn’t make it to the Toronto Film Festival or Cannes last year (nope), and/or you’re not a member of the press with access to advance screenings (ditto), you might have had the chance to see only three of, say, J. Hoberman’s picks for the ten best.
That’s what region-free DVD players and video projectors are for. So, without further ado, here are my five favorite Top 10 (or more) lists of 2007.
Oh, and the best film I saw last for the first time last year? The restoration of The Whole Shootin’ Match at SXSW. Over twenty-five years since it was produced, it’s still not available on DVD.
Last night I tried to catch some of the action going on at Seesmic, one of the most innovative and promising new web services out there.
Labelled as a “Twitter with video”, Seesmic hasn’t yet defined a strong application personality for itself yet, but, and that may be as valuable as having defined one, has been listening with true open ears to everything its first few hundred users have been telling it.
By using a true bottom up approach Seesmic has created a true conversational platform to help, refine and steer the very direction of the company that makes the same platform available.
But is that enough to dive a web company to success?
Is it enough to have enough money, visibility and technical resources to put together a Twitter-like tool with video and then try to get as big as possible to then see where money can be made, or would it be better to have a vision before everything else and then shape it with the help of your community?
Hard to say, as your audience could be driving you a thousand different directions at the same time, unless you have already well figured out where you want to go.
That is also what one of the digerati of the web thinks, when providing his own view on the success potential of the bottom-up drive-approach of the Seesmic community.
Bottom-Up Driven Social Media – Always A Winning Strategy?
Yes, you have got it right. The cool thing about Seesmic is that it allows you to shoot out short video messages to the community while generating a wide, always in-flux, extended party-like visual conversation, where topics and people move in and out almost just like in the real world.
I find the Seesmic conversations truly genuine, often engaging, sometimes dull and superficial, just like in real life.
And it is this genuinity, this final rise of the personal voice in all of its splendor, uncensored and unpackaged for delivery, that makes this content so incredibly compelling.
Compelling for those participating in it because it is very real and extends significantly the number and quality of discussion mates you can have. Compelling for those watching it only because there is often a great deal of personal learning and insight that is normally shared inside these conversations. Compelling for the publisher hosting this community because it creates a true virtual space in which to support the interests and passions of your readers. Bye bye forums, Seesmic is here.
Compelling for advertiser and marketers which could find in the very community members some of the best endorsers and promoters of their own tools and products. Without needing to become all shills.
But Seesmic has still a long way to go even in developing some of what should be its basic features, such as the lack of more powerful threading capabilities. These would allow one to follow and engage in specific conversations at her own time while providing a wealth of valuable content that could be re-sued elsewhere.
Not only.
Seesmic requires still too much of a compulsive, redundant interaction reduced to its very minimum terms. Clicking on the next video to see what the next person said. And next. That gets tiring. An “autoplay” feature which would allow you to follow your favorite friends or conversation threads is all I am hoping for.
Why Distributed Social Media Is Better Than Centralized Social Media
So, let aside the excitement for what Seesmic could be, what appears to me still enigmatic is the apparent focus, a-la Facebook on having another centralized community, which as a consequence requires everyone to go to Seesmic to have a conversation with the people they like.
Is this really needed?
Aren’t we in the age of distributed (social) media?
Why should I go to engage in a conversation at Seesmic when I have already built a community of friends at my own site or elsewhere?
I love to have conversations and I love to meet new and interesting people, but I don’t think I need to throw myself into a super-busy party where everyone has a micro-span of attention for me and where topic changes every moment?
My friends are not at Seesmic.
My friends are where I have met and invited them before. At my place. Not at some downtown disco where all of our group intimacy and “feel” is lot or where I need to be forced out of any conversation simply because we are a million and one.
Virtual space is infinite, let’s use it.
A month ago I posted this short video comment to Loic on Seesmic.
Robin Good on Seesmic
duration: 40″
“MySeesmic” is in fact my own idea Seesmic. I want to have Seesmic on my site, for my readers, with my own lokk and feel. That’s what I want: a distributable version of Seesmic that any site can embed and integrate in its pages.
Just asNing and many of the other Open Social partners, I would love to see Seesmic adopt this new standard and leverage the best from both the distribution potential as well as from aggregating and providing access to all these communities from a centralized space.
To my surprise, last night, Loic LeMeur posted a fresh new clip he has just recorded with Patrick Chanezon of the Google Open Social team, and where Patrick provides some interesting suggestions and ideas to get Seesmic into the Open Social game. If you haven’t yet read about Open Social, this is a new standard that allows easy distribution and integration of social media services into other sites.
Loic LeMeur and Patrick Chanezon
duration: 15′:05″
Advertising on Seesmic?
But outside of the core implementation strategy Seesmic will use, one of the fascinating aspects of these new innovative social media tools is how they will survive.
What will be Seesmic business model?
Advertising on Seesmic?
Well, the bottom-up video conversational approach worked greatly here as well with Seesmic users spontaneously brainstorming alternative advertising strategies and providing free creative input to Loic and his (and others) future investors.
Check out this great video compilation from Seesmic where not only you get a sense of what it is like to be inside this video conversational platform but where you can also hear some interesting ideas about the possible alternative potential advertising opportunities ramping up for Seesmic and for similar social media destinations.
Seesmic compilation
a) conversational style
b) brainstorming on advertising opportunities (from 3:05″)
c) community spirit, tradition and peer pressure at work on Seesmic – you gotta dance! (from 5:51″)
duration: 7′:41″
Just watching those few video clips gave me in turn a bunch of ideas and as social media wants, I shared back:
Robin Good
duration: 1′:51″
Conclusions – What I see Ahead for Seesmic
Seesmic has great potential. Of this I am sure as I saw firsthand by using it the power that this new format, conversational video can have in terms of supporting and energizing online communities, while providing them with an excellent tool to brainstorm, discuss and develop new ideas.
From my own viewpoint, as an online publisher, Seesmic does not have yet any of the key features that would make it a killer app in my eyes. These are:
a) Threading – find easily specific conversation threads o any topic or author you select
b) Autoplay – watch it like TV by selecting the conversation themes or authors or time periods you are interested in most
c) Distribution – allow Seesmic to be built around communities that already exist by making it highly distributable and easy to integrate into any existing web site (like Ning does).
Seesmic bottom-up approach in transparently leveraging user ideas and comments is something rare to be seen and should be great matter of research and study for media students.
Loic, its CEO, is, whether you like him or not, a man larger than life, positive, optimistic, and very determined (and aware) of the role he has chosen to play for himself. He seems to be able attract lots of attention and press coverage but he has definitely an interesting story to tell.
Overall this is a hot mix to keep watching close for a while. It may be pan out to become nothing I would waste any time on, as much as becoming the next truly social media marketing platform I would really bet my best cards on.
One thing appears now sure. Even if it ain’t Seesmic doing it, the time is ripe for the real, uncensored conversations to start.
What do you think?
Written by Robin Good for Master New Media and first published on Thursday January 3rd 2008 as “Social Media And Conversational Marketing: Seesmic Bottom-Up Approach And Advertising Opportunity Insights”
I was speaking with a fellow filmmaker the other day who was asking me for tips on finding grants for fiction films. I’ve been successful at finding grant-based funding for my work (”Gina, An Actress, Age 29″ was supported by the sadly now-defunct Aperture Film Grant), but I had to break the disappointing news that those sources are few and far between for fiction work these days.
Having said that, if you’re developing a not-for-profit film/video project — say, a social-issue documentary or a youth video project — there is money out there. A great introduction to finding money is Morrie Warshawski’s Shaking The Money Tree, 2nd Edition.
I read Shaking the Money Tree years ago when it was still in its first edition. Since then I’ve probably raised close to $100,000 in grant monies for various projects (my own and others’) since reading it. Documentarians will probably benefit from it the most, but I strongly recommend it to filmmakers that need help raising funds for their films, or fund-raisers new to film and video production, regardless of film genre.
One fundraising strategy that’s discussed briefly in Shaking The Money Tree is given its own extended treatment in Warshawski’s newly revised The Fundraising Houseparty, 2nd Edition.
As Warshawski points out in this slim volume’s introduction, individual donors account for 87% of all non-profit endeavors. Fundraising houseparties are a way to bring such individuals together and introduce them to a project that might deserve their support.
I’ve never hosted a houseparty (nor had one hosted for my work), but I have attended a couple, so I have a decent grasp of what works and what doesn’t. Warshawski’s guide is the best I’ve seen on what can be an intimidating process for the uninitiated. The basics are spelled out in easy-to-read prose, with straightforward diagrams and illustrations helping to walk you through the process. The appendix even includes sample invitation letters and a worksheet. Yes, some of this stuff is common sense (”Thank People as They Leave” states one heading), but other topics aren’t (”taxes”).
As the saying goes, you gotta spend money to make money. At $20 (or less) each, these books are a pretty good investment for anyone considering or pursuing the not-for-profit realm of moviemaking. If you have other tips or reading suggestions, share them in the comments below.
Where would you like to see Master New Media going next?
It is the start of a new year and nonetheless I have started making new editorial plans since this past 2007 summer, it is only now that some of them will start to see the light of the day.
Among them is first of all a greater focus on cultivating an open and direct dialogue with each one of you.
This is why today I open Master New Media to you, my reader to openly suggest, criticize, push through your own ideas to make Master New Media more of the site you have always wanted.
For a long time, the content and the editorial style I have chosen to use have left little or no space to the open conversation with which so much of the good web is made up today. Unless I can learn something from you, there is little hope I can go in the right direction next.
So, whether you are a fan or long time supporter of this site or someone that has only recently discovered Master New Media, I gently invite you to start this new year by telling me straight and openly what you like and don’t like about this site. Don’t hold any shot, say everything you feel and more than everything contribute something that can help me see things you think I haven’t realized so far and should pay more attention to.
Here is some guiding questions if you feel overwhelmed by your own ideas:
a) What is the feature or the trait that do you like the most about MNM (MasterNewMedia) ?
b) Which is the one that you like the least?
c) If you were to add a feature or editorial component what would it be?
d) What bothers you the most on this site?
e) What is something you would like to see more of?
I am fully listening! Peruse the “Readers Comments” link here below and let me hear what you have to say.
If you are looking for some great sound effects that you can actually use look no further than Designer Sound FX. This is a great product from Andrew Kramer of videocopilot.net. He as many useful products that I can’t live without and this in no exception. There is too much here to list but here is a quick rundown of what you will receive:
500 Sound FX & Audio Elements
Royalty Free Sound FX for all your productions
After Effects Project File for this Promo
Free Tutorials and Extras!
2-DVD Set jammed full of extras!
Bonus Extras & Tutorials: 5 Video Tutorials: Learn to Plan, Mix, Score, Animate, Sync and Render Learn how to create audio scores like the one aboveusingDesigner SFX
5Pre-Scored Audio Tracks with AE Project Files (Royalty Free, AE 6.5+) Use, Rearrange, and learn from these 5 pre-made scores or design your own Entire Promo Video Project File & Footage (AE 7) See how everything was created and manipulated from start to finish.
Best wishes for a creative, productive, happy, and peaceful 2008.
Where I come from (East Tennessee) it is tradition to eat black-eyed peas for good luck in celebration of the New Year. Sometimes that means beans out of a can, sometimes it means more: Today Ashley treated me to a plate full of not only Hoppin’ John, but also greens and macaroni and cheese. Yes, 2008, we’re off to a good start.
Follow along at home:
If you have the Joy of Cooking, and you should, there’s a good recipe for Hoppin’ John in there.
. 
Learn how to create audio scores like the one above
SECURE & CONFIDENTIAL