… from a surprising source: ESPN.

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.

indieWire Critics Poll
Village Voice/LA Weekly Film Poll
Two polls that are virtually identical in their results… because they poll virtually the same group of people. Don’t ask me why there are two polls.

IndieWire 2007 Critics Poll: Best Undistributed Film
Village Voice/LA Weekly Film Poll: Best Undistributed Film
Same as above.

Michael Atkinson’s Straight Outta Digi: The Best Non-Theatrical Debuts of ‘07

DVD Beaver’s Best DVD Releases of the Year

Jonathan Rosenbaum’s Top Movies of the Year

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.

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.

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.

Of course, there are variations. Here’s one. Vegan? I haven’t forgotten you.

Did you know the latest version of Photoshop CS 3 allows you to import full motion video? 

This may be old news to some of you, but it was news to me: You can burn HD-DVDs (not Blu-Ray) on a Mac using a standard DVD burner, Final Cut Pro, Compressor, and DVD Studio Pro. I tried it last night. It works.

The limitations?

- Standard single-layer DVD media storage limits mean that you’re limited to burning shorter projects (under 60 min).
- The article states you can’t play these on an HD-DVD player. I don’t have an HD-DVD player, so I haven’t verified this. You can, however, play them on a Mac.

Hooking up my MacBook Pro to a television and screening the DVD played flawlessly. And it looked a lot better than a standard definition DVD.

The trade-off? As anyone who’s done it before can tell you, encoding a project to H.264 takes a long, long time.

Gels are useful, but pricey. Any budget-minded filmmaker should take good care of them. Here’s a helpful post from David Tames at Kino-Eye that details some simple ways to organize your gels so that they last longer.

I caught some flack this summer when I was complaining about all the sequels and remakes in theaters. The folks that were most frustrated with me almost seemed to be asking, “Okay, fine, smarty pants. What would YOU rather see?”

One easy answer to that question would be Billy The Kid, Jennifer Vendetti’s superb new documentary, which opens for a limited engagement tomorrow at the IFC Center in New York (more theatrical screenings are soon to follow nationwide). Don’t miss this one. It’s easily one of my favorite films — fiction or non-fiction — of the year, and probably the best film about growing up that I’ve seen since Spellbound.

The film is a portrait of a Maine teenager, an awkward, troubled, and wise kid named Billy. What happens? Just life. Billy meets a girl. He deals with kids that don’t like him. His mother loves him and talks straight with him.

As far as plot is concerned, that’s “it.” But to explain the appeal of this movie, I would have to relay specific scenes from it. And the last thing I want to do is spoil the moments of discovery that Vendetti captures. All I can say is that the film does an uncommonly good job of capturing the raw awkwardness, pain, anger and tenderness of life at 15. The moments of Billy’s I-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-myself reactions to first love, and his mother’s sensitivity to his plight, are especially priceless.

Since Billy’s thoughts and feelings are so close to the surface, throughout I kept fearing that Vendetti’s might teeter into the realm of exploitation. For me, it didn’t. Billy’s an outsider, and while there are undoubtedly some very funny moments in the film, whenever I was laughing at Billy it was because there was a shock of recollection of some similar moment (like his scene of electric guitar heroics) from my own childhood. And even in these moments, I was cheering for him, admiring his combination of guts and innocence.

Billy The Kid opens today at the IFC Center. Theatrical screenings in Chicago, Seattle, and elsewhere are upcoming. Check the Billy The Kid website for details. It’s worth seeking out.