Showing posts with label independent film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label independent film. Show all posts
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Head to Head
I never want to be called the funniest Indian female comedian that exists,” she said. “I feel like I can go head-to-head with the best white, male comedy writers that are out there. Why would I want to self-categorize myself into a smaller group than I’m able to compete in?” Mindy Kaling
While I am not a female Indian comedian, this automatically reminded me of a time at a friend’s dinner party some months back. I was introduced to a young, white male (yes, I know I am a young, white female so I am lacking in the minority element here) who “does what you do”. This is almost always a real crapshoot. There are plenty of people who work in film, of course. Usually this is followed up by a conversation revealing that we don’t actually do similar things. This time, however, was somewhere in between. When I asked him what projects he usually works on and what camera he usually shoots on his reply was, “Oh you know doc style stuff, mostly 5D.” For those of you who don’t know what this signifies let me break it down for you. Doc style = some sort of reality based web series thing with no concept. Mostly 5D = ALL 5D. Only 5D. Never tried to light a damned thing or shoot with any other real camera. This is what ALMOST every young person aspiring to be a shooter says. Especially young, male ones. Now, do not misunderstand my critique here. The Canon 5D Mark II was a game changer for independent film, giving very high image quality to anyone who could shell out $3,000. It has its wonderful uses (I shot a documentary in India about death & dying and did so with a 7D because we did not have the proper permits and it allowed us to fly under the radar both legally and visibly while shooting on certain grounds). And doc style is also useful and a look to be utilized as a creative choice. However, most of the time it is utilized because of lack of money, lighting knowledge, and/or concept in these situations. I would not probably remember this conversation these months later if he hadn’t followed up these gems with the ignorant, entitled sentence, “Aw yeah man, we need more women shooters in there with us”.
Us? The idea that you know nothing about me, you know nothing of the projects I have worked on or been a part of, or the very talented people I have studied under and yet the arrogant words “in there with us” spill out of your mouth instantly after sipping on watered down urine that is Heineken. You feel, inherently, that you are somehow in on some club that I have to continually knock on the door of and how kind of them to let one of ‘me’ in? I work with and have learned from women (and men for that matter) who would not have you in their club. A club inclusive of artists who have studied their art and do not have to uptalk themselves because they work on projects they care about. I can go head-to-head, toe-toe, anygoddamned appendage-to-appendage with any of your ilk. I have studied cinematography because I respect it, know its power and effectiveness in telling a story well, and because I know any fuck can pick up a camera and get at least some…something pretty now and again. Because of this I study it, its lovers and its masters to be better than you…who shoots Fashion’s Night Out and calls himself a cinematographer.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Die the Good Death
“Die the Good Death” directed by Silvia Fernandez & Beatrix M Calleja and shot by well, me, has been selected for the Official Competition at the 7th edition of MiradasDoc Festival !!!
They also selected us to be screened during their MiradasDoc Market specifically for Producers and Distributors! We’re so excited!
They also selected us to be screened during their MiradasDoc Market specifically for Producers and Distributors! We’re so excited!
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
What's Revenge?
We posted our Kickstarter page for “What’s Revenge?”, a docu-vengeance I am shooting later this year, a few days ago and already we were chosen as a STAFF PICK and featured on the Recommended page! Check out the link to see what it’s all about!
Thursday, January 19, 2012
oh boy...
so long overdue I am back here. where to begin? December was a great month. I always tend to sort of downshift due to habit through the years that my birthday is a week before Christmas, then Christmas, then New Year’s. This year was even better with 2 screenings of films I shot in one week prior to the birthday. Talk about celebration time!
A short film I shot “Tied Up”, which I posted about before, had it’s premiere at the Helen Mills Theater in NYC. It was a fairly mad dash to get it color timed and sweetened in time, but as usually happens it all worked out. We used Nice Dissolve in Bushwick which was a great experience. Jason DeSimone and Brady Kirchberg did a great job organizing the night. There were 2 sold out screenings and an after party. There’s always something nice about meeting up with crew that you may not have seen since the shoot with a sort of, “well…we did it” atmosphere. Ha. Dave Milone did a BTS of the shoot as well, which normally I hate because who wants a camera on then when you’re the camera person?, but he was great and in the end it’s fun to have.
A few days later was the premiere of “Die the Good Death”, which we were shooting about a year ago to the date in Varanasi, India. What an experience and what an amazing feat that it has been synced, mixed, edited, color timed and shown in less than a year. It really is. This project was a little closer to home, both in the crew…there were 3 of us in true doc style…and subject matter. Death and living life is more relatable to me (and most others I presume) than drug deals gone awry. :) I am so very proud of what co-directors Silvia Fernandez Campos and Beatriz Calleja did with all the fantastic footage we were able to get in the mere 11 days we were there.
Ohhh, and I can’t forget about the limo night. Yes, my wonderful friend Bea was in town for the screening and the time bookcased our birthdays. We opted for a limo rental around the city. If anyone is in need of an excellent and patient stretch limo driver, I got one for you. We party hopped and had general debauchery picking up friends along the way. There is definitely GoPro footage, ahem Spaniards, and photos, ahem Shula, that exists of this evening, but I am still waiting for it. Ahem. :)
Then came my birthday. Due to Bettie being out of commission to drive up to a cabin I opted to keep birthday time more local this year. My birthday time is always busy so I gave everyone a chance to join by starting the day at brunch. :) It was fantastic. I never knew who was going to be at the next spot on the itinerary. We came back to the apartment and played on my miniature pool table (thanks Bea!) and somehow ended up at The Jane after all was said and done. Whew, eating, drinking, pooling, dancing…not a bad way to spend a birthday with old and new friends.
There was Christmas in MO, where it’s always a little strange since none of my family lives in the place where I grew up…just in nearby towns and cities. So going home still feels nice, but always a little tilted. It was the first Christmas with a child around old enough to enjoy the present opening and excitement of it all. The adults were definitely up late on Christmas Eve eating Santa’s cookies, drinking his Egg Nog, and nibbling on the reindeers’ carrots. It was magical and very fun. :) We came back a little too early, but vacation has to end at some point I suppose.
I mean HOW adorable is this?
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Things, Movies, and Updates
Well, my apologies for my absence. I have been dooooing things I swear.
1) My Sony F3 came in to Abel Cine early so I was buying that (and dealing with convincing the bank to let me have access to MY money. Ugh.) With many thanks to Mark Schwartzbard for tips and DBA/ EIN details. It is a fantastic camera and I am really really happy with it so far! I'm eager to keep playing with it so if you have any projects you wanna do LET ME KNOW!
2) The first part of July was spent navigating the 7 day short film I shot "TIED UP" with Jose Venutolo Directing, a project of Brady Kirchberg origins. We had a lot of, ahem, things thrown at us...an eastern European building super who started carting our equipment off premises and eventually cut the power to the apartment we were shooting in - a nice, reasonable man ha...lost actors and lost locations. Some of the wrenches thrown were par for the course, some seemed to require superhuman patience and ingenuity. Nonetheless there are always lessons learned, we persevered, and we wrapped at about 430am on a Friday morn with some really great stuff!
Brady and Jose are working on the editing already and the plan is to head to NICE DISSOLVE for post. The producer set up a demo session with them last week and their facilities are pretty great! They're tucked away in a rather booming side street of Bushwick. While the studio itself is small, the package is extensive. We'll be using their DaVinci Resolve suite with real-time playback. I'm looking forward to it. Here are some quick stills from the TIED UP footage:
3) Other updates include Beach going! My fantastic friends and I headed to Jacob Riis for a much needed cool off! Beach, snacks, beers and vodka slushies are good for the soul.
4) This is probably obvious, but I love Netflix. More specifically Netflix Instant Play. I watched "Carnal Knowledge" (1971) a few nights back and it is a gem I knew nothing about. The cast alone is reason enough for you to watch it. If you love relationship analysis and gender studies then you've got yourself a golden ticket here. Jack Nicholson, Arthur Garfunkel, Candice Bergen (Yes, she was a full blown sex symbol in her day. For those of us that only grew up watching her in Murphy Brown this is fun to see), Ann-Margaret (wowza), and Rita Moreno power pack this film. The style of Mike Nichols' direction (The Graduate, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - so he has some experience with this genre :) adds an element of flash without taking away from a strong cast that can carry a heavy film and still come out as a bit of a comedy. Here's the original NY Times review from '71 (I also love the internet):
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=ee05e7df1731b52ca2484cc7b6799d8c6896
There are many great scenes, but this is definitely one of the best:
Another film I saw during my absence on the ol' blog was "Bad Timing" (1980) on a recommendation of a friend. Another astute, but slightly more abstract, relationship study starring Art (he lost the -hur by this point) Garfunkel (Some say this film might have helped end his acting career as his character is pretty dark here. I mean it's not like HE'S ACTING or anything here people. Guffaw.) and Theresa Russell. Harvey Keitel also plays a key role as a suspicious detective. This Nicolas Roeg flick needs 2 watches at least.
It's definitely not my favorite of Roeg's, but it's engrossing and fun to decipher. If you like Roeg's structure in general, it seems one would like this films as well. Theresa Russell gives a really great performance, but I grow tired of female characters (which is of course not her doing) that long to be free while having a connection with someone sans being controlled by them. Yet, they keep succumbing to the "need" to please said person and so do what they know they cannot sustain. They stay. I suppose this is one aspect that makes the film engaging, though many times it just seems a byproduct of the desires of the writer.
2) The first part of July was spent navigating the 7 day short film I shot "TIED UP" with Jose Venutolo Directing, a project of Brady Kirchberg origins. We had a lot of, ahem, things thrown at us...an eastern European building super who started carting our equipment off premises and eventually cut the power to the apartment we were shooting in - a nice, reasonable man ha...lost actors and lost locations. Some of the wrenches thrown were par for the course, some seemed to require superhuman patience and ingenuity. Nonetheless there are always lessons learned, we persevered, and we wrapped at about 430am on a Friday morn with some really great stuff!
Brady and Jose are working on the editing already and the plan is to head to NICE DISSOLVE for post. The producer set up a demo session with them last week and their facilities are pretty great! They're tucked away in a rather booming side street of Bushwick. While the studio itself is small, the package is extensive. We'll be using their DaVinci Resolve suite with real-time playback. I'm looking forward to it. Here are some quick stills from the TIED UP footage:
3) Other updates include Beach going! My fantastic friends and I headed to Jacob Riis for a much needed cool off! Beach, snacks, beers and vodka slushies are good for the soul.
4) This is probably obvious, but I love Netflix. More specifically Netflix Instant Play. I watched "Carnal Knowledge" (1971) a few nights back and it is a gem I knew nothing about. The cast alone is reason enough for you to watch it. If you love relationship analysis and gender studies then you've got yourself a golden ticket here. Jack Nicholson, Arthur Garfunkel, Candice Bergen (Yes, she was a full blown sex symbol in her day. For those of us that only grew up watching her in Murphy Brown this is fun to see), Ann-Margaret (wowza), and Rita Moreno power pack this film. The style of Mike Nichols' direction (The Graduate, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - so he has some experience with this genre :) adds an element of flash without taking away from a strong cast that can carry a heavy film and still come out as a bit of a comedy. Here's the original NY Times review from '71 (I also love the internet):
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=ee05e7df1731b52ca2484cc7b6799d8c6896
There are many great scenes, but this is definitely one of the best:
Another film I saw during my absence on the ol' blog was "Bad Timing" (1980) on a recommendation of a friend. Another astute, but slightly more abstract, relationship study starring Art (he lost the -hur by this point) Garfunkel (Some say this film might have helped end his acting career as his character is pretty dark here. I mean it's not like HE'S ACTING or anything here people. Guffaw.) and Theresa Russell. Harvey Keitel also plays a key role as a suspicious detective. This Nicolas Roeg flick needs 2 watches at least.
It's definitely not my favorite of Roeg's, but it's engrossing and fun to decipher. If you like Roeg's structure in general, it seems one would like this films as well. Theresa Russell gives a really great performance, but I grow tired of female characters (which is of course not her doing) that long to be free while having a connection with someone sans being controlled by them. Yet, they keep succumbing to the "need" to please said person and so do what they know they cannot sustain. They stay. I suppose this is one aspect that makes the film engaging, though many times it just seems a byproduct of the desires of the writer.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Mary Marie
I went to see a wonderful indie film co-written and co-starred by these 2 ladies. One of which is the Director, Alexandra Roxo, and a friend of mine. It was the first time either had made a film, although both went to school for acting. It was a pleasure to watch and the characters occupy a place in one anothers' world that isn't easily described, which I like.
There are really good moments throughout the film and the locations chosen (luckily in the family of one of the writers) are well-used and full of rich layers. The color palette and wardrobe are key elements of any film as well and they too are expertly chosen. The Director of Photography, Migela Crosignani, was the one of the most experienced people on the team and she does not disappoint. It's beautifully shot, beautifully framed...a perfect complement to the storyline. She uses everything from spoons to truck side windows to frame her shots and utilizes every inch of the lovely rural location to present the story at its best.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
well this is interesting...
This picture has nothing to do with the actual Cinema Club I'm posting about...it's just an old image of an old movie theatre in the Berkshires I found. So there.
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