Just last week as I was standing on the southbound platform at the Midtown Marta Station, I had just put in another twelve hours at the office. Two girls maybe in their early twenties caught my ear with another of those chant and clap routines I had come to despise and dismiss as yet another loud display of anti-social behavior. I knew from the sounds of their inflections and the hour of the day, that these were the voices of two African-America girls. Being African-American and college educated during the late 80’s , I now wax and wane on my reactions to African-American youth in Atlanta. Depending on the political climate, they are either the subject matter of my defense for black culture suffering at the hands of the larger cultural appropriation of their creativity. Or, they are the angst and source of embarrassment that Zora Neale Hurston typified in saying. “…my skin but not my kin…” Thus when Elizabeth Hamilton, the director of the 31ST ATLANTA FILM FESTIVAL’S TEEN SCREENINGS chided me to come sit in and watch some of the films being made by persons younger than 18, I felt they had nothing to impress me with. I had concluded that today’s youth culture is too self-centered and too materialistic to entertain me. I had begun to shut out their voices. But today, (Wednesday, April 25, 2007) I listened and despite my reservations, I was impressed.

Today’s selected films were presented under the banner DIFFERNENT CULTURES, DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES, ONE WORLD. The submissions had all come from children in The United States. One film was from the New York City’s Educational Video Center’s own ‘Doc Workshop’. It was a nice historical overview on immigration. Still the common denominator was to examine the American Dream. I found it amazing that some of the kids tried some interesting techniques. Shimu Wu (One Child) actually used a memory sequence while two others Felicia Mason (Remember When) and Maisee Change, Kong Xiong (Leaving the Homeland) opened with black and white and gradually added color. These ‘directors of the Future’, Elizabeth’s term, not mine, used the technology available to them to occasional delve beneath the superficial level. To my delight, the shorts were not ripe for the mindlessness of the popular televised America’s Home Video. These kids dared to show a range of thoughtfulness.

Stay tuned here at www.cinematl.com for an interview with the one of these future directors: Emilie Kengmo Chappatte, whose film A Day In Baleveng serve to remind me that no matter how embarrassing I have to keep listening to the youth. Although the youths standing on a subway platform may be acting up they may do so without knowing they are acting out a tradition of their and perhaps my own ancestors.

Ok maybe that’s a bit to liberal.. let’s take in one step at a time. But offering kids an opportunity to screen their short films was another good reason for you couch potatoes to get out and support THE 31ST ATLANTA FILM FESTIVAL.

THANKS, ELIZABETH HAMILTON.

Authored by Kevin Stewart

It was early Saturday (April 21. 2007) and it was my first full day at the 31st Atlanta Film Festival. I was just about to leave The designated festival pass lounge area (The Independent) when to my surprise I spotted a man sitting just inside the doorway. He was busy sorting a stack of posters for the film Flesh and Blood. Among the films I had previewed a week before the festival was Flesh and Blood. As I approached this man, I could not help but stare all the while debating in my mind, this is either a person working in marketing and promoting the film or the director himself. My career in writing about film has just begun. Flesh and Blood was the first film I had critiqued harshly. There was no time for apologies, do film critics even make apologies? The man felt me staring and looked up. He extended his hand and in doing so said, “hello, I’m Larry Silverman”. My heart skipped a beat but I was determined to not chicken out. I sat down and commenced to act like I did not know who he was. My façade was to no avail. We were only two questions into my impromptu interview before Larry surmised that I had see the film.

I preceded to confess to Larry that I had problems with his film. As I clarified that it was his camera eye that was the cause of my consternation rather than the subject itself, I expected him to turn sour. He did not. Instead he turned his head in that cute way puppy dogs do when you sing high pitched notes in front of them. He became almost whimsical in his mannerisms. He genuinely wanted to know the reasoning behind my thoughts. This quieted my reservations and I felt a kindred spirit take hold of me. Suddenly I became oblivious to all the other chatter surrounding us. As we discussed Steve Haworth (the subject of the documentary Flesh and Blood) I began to pick up on the traps and pitfalls a filmmaker may have to sidestep and in doing so still fall into. For instance, in my preview, I accused Larry of leading the audience into sharing his disgust for those featured in his documentary. Larry corrected that in saying that he had tried to avoid “leading the audience by the nose”. He shared with me that through his many years with television (Larry Silverman was the director of Ripley’s Believe It or Not) he had come to dislike the shock factors. Thus Larry said in making Flesh and Blood he tried to leave it to the viewer to be shocked or not. The in your face approach I criticized was his preferred method of keeping the viewer engaged with his subject. In this case it was Steve’s tendency to be at all times guarded thus keeping us at bay rather than Larry’s camera angle. Therefore the tension I detected was real however I had attributed it to Larry.

Overall it was so refreshing to get the director’s perspective and all the while have that same director understand how I could get yet another. My encounter with Larry Silverman was much like that of going to an art exhibition and having the artist on hand. In this case it was a film festival and Larry was secure in his film. He left me more secure in my critique.

As a mere lover of film, I encourage you our readers to trust your own views. But leave the writing to us risk takers. You never know when you might meet that irate film maker who makes you regret ever trying to critique his film. Larry Silverman is not irate, He’s more of a Ward Cleaver kind of guy: well suited for the task but still nurturing. I got lucky, Whew!

-Kevin

Dogme.AughtSix is a reworking of the Dogme95 manifesto designed to eliminate gimmick and spectacle from the contemporary short film and focus on story and character in hopes of inspiring true emotion.

In Copenhagen during the Spring of 1995, Lars Von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg sat down to write a manifesto that could revive the cinema. They sought a way to compel filmmakers to find the truth in the moment by centering the production on the actor. The wryly written manifesto lead to a movement called Dogme95. Contemporary short films suffer from many of the same “tendencies” as the Hollywood films the two Danes so detest. Young filmmakers are in search of the gimmick that will make them famous, if only on the internet. Dogme.AughtSix, often pulling directly from Dogme95, strives to produce authentic films, but where Dogme95 eschews the personality of the director in favor of ultimate truth, Dogme.AughtSix only strives to eliminate the distraction of technology and spectacle so that a filmmaker can find a voice as a director of actors. - Dailies: Dogme.AughtSix Project Manifesto

I caught the first public screening of Dogme.AughtSix this past Friday at Push Push. If you’ve been reading The Blog my previous summation after the Dogme press screening that some of the films made me want to “take my eyes out and chew on them” probably jumped out at you.

Well, that verdict didn’t change for the films that it applied to. For a good portion of the films they were much more enjoyable–even the one’s I liked at the press screening–than the first time. Like taking a cube and rotating it, I found new surfaces and edges that I hadn’t noticed on first glance.

Take The Singing, a story about a woman named Ruth coping with her sister-in-law’s tragic accident, as an example. The first go around, the short just didn’t have the same punch it did the second time. With a little familiarity, I was free to search and hunt for details and shading.

I was rewarded when I found some nice use of spatial relationships between the two women to help delineate the emotional beats and turns. It subtly divides the scene into mini-arcs as Ruth and her sister-in-law Angie take a 40 year journey of familial relationships and dynamics in 10 minutes.

My main complaint is that The Singing unfolds less like a short than a Neil Simon one-act caught on camera. The character actions come off as broad and too expansive for the camera. The camera magnifies emotions and events and when combined with self-conscious camera movement, The Singing can’t help but remind an audience that what they are watching isn’t real. Which isn’t a bad thing if there’s a semblance of truth to the piece. Because as long as there’s emotional truth, the audience has an entry point that allows them to understand or identify with a character or set of characters.

After reading the rules and listening to Adam Thompson’s (the producer of this Dailies challenge) take on the point of this challenge, I think that understanding the difference between reality and truth is what lies at the heart of this project.

Hollywood has mastered the art of manipulating editing, lighting, sound and music to create believable worlds and inducing emotional responses. Yet, just because a thing appears to be realistic—or is realistic—doesn’t mean that thing inherently has truth, or a truth that we collectively agree with. Nor does that mean that a particular emotional response was earned using the currency of truth.

Strip away the artifice in a film, in a scene, in a single shot and what are you left with? Without swelling romantic music or the shrill sound of a violin, would an audience react? Take away the lingering long shot on a face, or the frenetic editing during a chase, would the audience “know” how to react? The line between sympathy and empathy is thin.

Patrick Paints a Picture was not only one of the stronger pieces in this round of screenings, but it precisely addresses this point. The character of Patrick doesn’t just sell paintings to his clients, he sells stories. He wraps his work in stories to give the illusion that there is a depth and an emotional core to the work. When customers walk out the door, painting under arm, they believe they’ve taken a bit of world weary wisdom—the kind that only artists, philosophers and priests seem equipped to understand—with them. Yet, the stories are lies constructed to sell a painting, no more, no less.

Patrick offers a believable reality that is empty of truth.

Would Patrick’s clients buy his work without a story or an emotion they could associate with his paintings? The short subtly hints that the answer is “no,” they wouldn’t buy the work.

Is Patrick doing his clients a disservice by not filling his paintings with truth? Is he doing himself a disservice?

What about filmmakers, are they doing a disservice to their audience when they only offer what they think the audience craves?

What about the audience? Should Patrick’s clients be relying so heavily on Patrick’s stories to tell them what they should feel? Even if Patrick’s stories were true, wouldn’t and shouldn’t Patrick be disappointed that without the stories his work has no meaning?

In Hoopla reality is held back. Dropped in the middle of the story all we are left with is the truth. However, whose truth? As a young man and a young woman argue and offer differing accounts of the same events, the audience is left wondering at the short’s end if what they’ve just seen is the truth. Or, will the characters continue to doll out the truth in half measure.

The beauty of the camera work in Hoopla is in how it mirrors the action. For the majority of the short, the camera fights to keep the actors in focus. The camera is trying to find the truth and hold on to it, but it’s elusive.

A question to pose is: “Does the audience have a grasp on the young man and young woman’s relationship?” In my mind, the relationship is the truth. Whatever will occur off screen, and whatever happened prior to the scene, is defined by the relationship established on screen. We don’t need to know what happened prior to where the scene begins. Everything we need to know and understand is given to us. Hoopla is reminiscent of a Larry Clark film, which have the feel of reality. However, just as it is in Clark’s films, recreating reality isn’t the point. The point is to peel back that top surface and to explore what’s underneath that reality.

If there had been a follow-up scene to Hoopla, in which we follow Wiley—the young man—would the audience be able to understand the context of that scene? Regardless of what situation Wiley finds himself in, would the audience still be able to identify with Wiley? In a film, characters may do abnormal things, however, that doesn’t mean that the motivating emotions themselves are abnormal. On the contrary, those emotions frustration, anger, joy and excitement are grounded in a truth shared by the world at large.

And it’s in my favorite piece The Thought Before that the question of presenting truth is faced head on.

In Thought a young woman’s mother has died and she’s begun moving out of her childhood home. As she’s waiting for the movers to arrive and take away boxes, her step-father appears on her front-door. To help or to offer comfort, it’s not obvious and that’s information we are left to uncover as the story unfolds. What is apparent is that the stepfather has been out of his stepdaughter’s life for sometime.

The resulting approach is to let the stepdaughter and her stepfather arrive at a truth they can share, a truth that is nurturing, through their own choices and interactions.

Thought’s strengths lie in a camera that doesn’t anticipate the action, but follows the action and in direction that allows the characters to muddle their way through the film and to decide what their relationship is and to define it on their own terms.

The camera reacts and empathizes, but at no point does the camera tell us what to feel, or what to think. Nor did the director have the actors offer actions that would indicate what we as the audience should be feeling or thinking. We are left to make our own decisions about who is right, who is wrong and what’s important.

There’s nothing wrong with using music, lighting and all the other incidentals in constructing scenes or communicating emotions and information to the audience. In fact, Dailies is taking on that exact challenge in a direct answer to Dogme called Catme. While the goal was to avoid relying on “gimmick and spectacle” to carry the story in Dogme, in Catme “gimmick and spectacle” will be used in service of the films and story.

What can be said is that filmmaker’s interested in communicating truth can’t replace truth with gimmicks or technique. It makes for dishonest filmmaking and adds nothing to our collective experience.

Worst of all, not wrestling with the truth or admitting when one doesn’t have the truth are the first signs of cowardice. Saying you don’t know. Fighting to uncover the truth, even in the face of failure. These are some of the bravest acts a filmmaker can make.

No, it’s Park City…Sundance is the name of the Festival

Well, we’ve heard through the grapevine that The Signal was accepted into Sundance. Once again the ATL and Georgia will be repped in Park City.

Congrats to writing/directing team David Bruckner, Dan Bush and Jacob Gentry for this much deserved honor. Hopefully they’ll remember CinemATL for the love we’ve showered them in the past *wink, wink, hint, hint*.

Oh and congrats to our own Steve Warren who’s among the cast. If you want to know who he is pick up any of the Rainforest flicks for the last few years–The Gospel will do–and look for the tall skinny white man. If you’ve seen a Rainforest film you should know it ain’t hard.

Hopefully this is the beginning of a long journey for The Signal and the production team and cast.

There are films that shall not be named ********** and *** ***** ****, that have done what the vast majority of festival films do. Travel the circuit, then quietly recede into memory as projects like We Are Marshall, Revenge of the Nerds and October Road have dominated many a conversation. Oh and there was the hilarous Chris Burns-Allen Iverson Dap Commercial–shoutout over due on the blog.

There’s no shame in not making waves sooner. Unlike Fed Ex, nothing in Hollywood is truly over night. However, like a small town football team watching the hometown QB play some big college games, Atlanta has intently watched to see if the films get the cinematic equivilant of being drafted early. And now that the first few rounds have slipped passed, the “A” is now waiting to see if they’ll be picked up at all.

So whether they wanted it or not, right or wrong, starting in Janurary many a filmmaker will have their eye on The Signal for most of oh-7 and they’ll be hoping, praying and wishing.

New image for IMAGE

New head honcho of IMAGE Gabe Wardell has jumped on the Atlanta Films Forum in an effort to discover what the community’s take on the Southeastern Media Award is. (Jump to it here)

IMAGE has been in flux and Gabe has pledged to bring a new vitality, openness and–most important–stability to an institution that’s been an Atlanta fixture for four decades. And He’s definitely showing a commitment to vitality and openness by asking what’s right and what’s wrong with the SMA. Stability be damned, if Gabe is going to shake things up over at IMAGE then damnit man, shake it up. The last thing Atlanta can afford is an irrelevant IMAGE–ugh, that sounds awkward.

Here’s to Gabe and the new–and hopefully last for a while–Atlanta Film Festival director Dan Krovich making oh-7 a year to remember.

We have Ga Tech, we didn’t need your nerds no how

Well the plot thickens. It appears that Nerds being kicked off campus (and IMDB) isn’t due to Emory being a shy bride. Ah, no the word is that director Kyle Newman’s skills and speed behind the camera were in question. Which in turn jeopardized not only the film’s budget, but also its integrity—yes there’s integrity in boob jokes.

More importantly as Fox Atomic’s first film developed internally (the soon to be released Turistias is a 2929 production, Atomic was merely the distributor) Nerds had quite a lot riding on it. The teen/young adult division is trying to forge a new scheme for producing and marketing films. And since no other studio/distributor has successfully targeted the under 24 set like Disney, the implosion of Atomic’s first in house film would have set a tone that the division probably wouldn’t survive.

So many apologies to Emory, as they appear to be merely the sacrificial lamb that kept Abraham from slaughtering Isaac. Although this demonstrates why the “A” needs indigenous filmmaking, because begging for someone else’s scraps is already demeaning. Having Hollywood demonstrate how they can use us like a used dish rag just adds insult to injury.

Ooooh, do I smell hypocrisy. Yeah, so I was upset when I thought Emory dropped the ball and thought they had shooed away film work. And now I’ve turned tail. I’m a self described internet pundit, I’m allowed to backtrack, it’s my job…

Forbes 15 Richest Fictional Characters

• Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks (52); $36.2 billion; Annie comics
• Charles Montgomery Burns (104); $16.8 billion; The Simpsons
• Scrooge McDuck (80); $10.9 billion; Disney
• Richie Rich (10); $10.7 billion; Richie Rich Comic books
• Jed Clampett (51); $7.7 billion; The Beverly Hillbilly’s
• Mr. Monopoly* (71); $7.1 billion; Monopoly board game
• Bruce Wayne (32); $6.8 billion; Batman
• Anthony Stark*, aka Iron Man (35); $3.0 billion; Iron Man comics
• Prince Abakaliki of Nigeria* (37); $2.8 billion; You’ve likely received an email from him
• Thurston Howell, III (60); $2.7 billion; Gilligan’s Island
• Willy Wonka (57); $2 billion; Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
• Lucius Malfoy (51); $1.3 billion; Harry Potter
• Tony Montana* (42); $1 billion; Scarface
• Lara Croft (37); $1 billion; Video game star
• Mario* (23); $1 billion; Super Mario

Questions? Where the hell does Mario get his ends? Does anyone forget those Gold Coins got flipped for extra lives and preternatural powers like throwing fire and buying magical puke-green frog suits? Either it’s residuals from all the merchandising and licensing, or—my personal theory—The Princess doesn’t mind sharing her loot. Hell, the rotund hero has saved her life like a billion times. “If I had a dollar for every time I saved The Princess I’d be a….” And how in the hell is Mario only 23…somebody tell Bob Hoskins.

No way is Bruce Wayne only rocking $6.8 Billion in fundage. The man paid for the Justice League’s orbiting space base The Watchtower and—long before he even had any use for them, because that’s how much of a master planner the Bats is—placed secret transporters on the moon. Is that the residual smell of some Batman and Robin hate I smell or did you just step in Bat Guano? Bruce is rocking Bill Gates type money no doubt.

Ditto for Tony Stark…although, he is a drunk. On second thought…

Tony Montana was worth a solid bill and not only did he get hooked on his own product but he got himself killed? Why do rappers look up to this cat again?

I’m guessing that Willy Wonka is probably thanking Congress for all those corn subsidies. Wait, he’s British—although Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp, both Americans have played him. You know what, economics are global. So Willy is probably thanking Congress. While developing countries are stuck selling their sugar cane, with its all natural sugar, for less profit.

And while I believe Mr. Burns indeed has the loot–what happened to that trillion dollar bill?– Scrooge McDuck has always known that diversification and doing a little Indiana Jones adventuring will keep his Bank Vault overflowing in dough. So I cry foul on the 3rd place finish. Come on, have you read the original Carl Barks’ Scrooge McDuck adventures? Only Tin Tin had more world spanning jaunts. In exotic and rare treasures alone, Scrooge is worth a bill.

Prince Abakaliki of Nigeria and his email scam. No comment needed.

Well it’s official, the Revenge of the Nerds remake is no more.

There’s no word, however one hopes that the City of Atlanta, City of Decatur (once production moved to Agnes Scott) and Georgia Film, Video and Music did everything in their collective power to keep the production here.

According to reports, the comedy was just too filthy for Emory’s tastes.

Now, what I want to know is, is how raunchy was this new Nerds? Had the folks over at Emory never seen the original, or had they only seen its PG-13 offspring Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise–defanged of all the elements that made its predecesor such great late night viewing and a must see for any 13 year old with a raging libido? Or, even worse, caught the two TV movies, the unimaginatively named The Next Generation and the let’s run this franchise into the ground followup Nerds in Love.

Come on Emory, the original had a nerd deliriously shrieking “We have bush, we have bush!” after the nerds have installed hidden cameras in the Pi-Delta-Pi sorority house. And another nerd in a Darth Vader helmet surreptitiouslly giving oral pleasure to a cheerleader who thinks it’s her football player boyfriend who’s suddenly learned some new moves. In the movie it’s funny as hell. In real life that tongue lashing would likely garner an assault charge and immediate expulsion.

Apparently, Emory didn’t get the note that Atlanta is trying to build a credible and thriving film industry that goes beyond just commercials and industrials.

Would the new Nerds have done much damage to Emory’s rep? Well, considering that many Southern schools still have Old South and Magnolia Balls in which young men and women–to the chagrin of many African American students–parade around campus in Civil War era regalia and occasionally behind closed doors dress like slaves. And no long term harm in either enrollment, or endowments has been felt by any of those schools, it’s doubtful.

Let’s not forget that Road Trip also filmed portions on Emory’s campus. And Sean William Scott’s very special prostate exam has had no lasting effect. So it’s uncertain that the $12.5 million dollar production would have done much damage to the University’s rep.

Of course I’m saying that without having seen either the script or what was filmed. It could be that Nerds ‘07 had crossed a line that should not have been crossed. Yet, why would Agnes Scott, an all women’s liberal–in the true sense of the word–arts school allow the production on campus. There’s even a story (read it here) about it linked prominently on the school’s web site. Emory in contrast makes no mention of the production and why it was kicked off anywhere on its site, at least, not one that I could find.

At days end, this is just another example of the bullsh*t that hinders Atlanta. From the constant mismanagement of Underground Atlanta, to the loss of Freaknick, the Jack the Rapper Music Convention and E3, to the let’s build just enough highway to last us the next 6 months mentality, Atlanta is a city that enjoys shooting itself in the foot.

A quick side note: It’s interesting that McG was one of the producers, as he was also the director of We Are Marshall which spent a sizeable portion of its shoot in Atlanta. What precisely attracted Revenge of the Nerds and We Are Marshall to the “A”? Now that Nerds has shut down, it probably doesn’t matter.

Urban Film Club recently launched on the web and it’s being tauted by some as an urban version of Netflix. Customers pay $14.99–by the way, the site doesn’t explicitly say if the fee is per month or per year and the answer is burried in the Terms of Use section–and each month those subscribers receive a new film of the month in the mail. According to the PR release UFC is aiming to bring African American films that saw limited theatrical release, or no release at all, to a wider audience.

It’s little surprise that CodeBlack is involved. With Preaching to the Choir CodeBlack specifially targeted both tradtional top tier African American markets and those that exist outside the traditional mainstream top tier markets. They also released the film in areas where partner Radio One had stations. This gave the film more robust marketing muscle as Radio One’s radio stations hold an influential place in African American homes.

So will UFC succeed? And what lessons can filmmakers across the board learn?

On success, I’m not sure.

Although they are launching with 150 titles, that’s no where near the number of titles Netflix rents out. And when Netflix sells the used DVD’s at $5.99, and many of these “hard to find” titles are increasingly found on Walmart shelves for $9.99, it might be hard to attract savvy consumers. Even customers who live in underserved markets.

While it’s true that book and video of the month clubs have been around for years those enterprises have offset the lack of choice in selection with customer friendly return policies and deep catalogs. UFC has neither depth nor an explicit statement about its return policies.

What can filmmakers across the board learn?

Well, considering that there still doesn’t exist a distribution site that has given independent filmmakers profitable alternatives en masse, I’m not sure yet. There already exist major players who have being snatching up low budget indie films for DVD distribution for years. Various local filmmakers here in Atlanta have benefited from that scheme.

It’s really up to UFC’s partners and suppliers like CodeBlack to become a dominant force in the distribution game before I see UFC itself becoming a serious contender.

What I personally hope for is, that as companies like CodeBlack gain a foothold in the years to come, they can branch out to independent filmmakers across the board and give them a home.

I saw an interesting story on Yahoo! News this morning. A popular series of video blogs on YouTube.com, posted by “Lonelygirl 15,” was revealed to be a hoax. The videos show a 16 year old named Bree, who talks to her computer camera about her lonely life, her oppressive parents, her religion and a boy who could save her from it all. Bree’s videos are probably no different from any other video diaries on the site, except that her entries are compelling enough that more than 25,000 folks who tune in regularly to hear her confessions and offer encouragement and advice. When some viewers saw that Bree didn’t respond to any of the viewer comments and that other things about her didn’t add up, suspicion was raised about her and the validity of her stories. On Wednesday, three men came forward and ‘fessed up: Bree is really a 19 year old actess, her stories are scripted and the whole video series is an experiment in storytelling.

Doesn’t seem like a bad idea. Why not a web serial about teenage angst told in the form of a video blog? From what I’ve seen looking over the shoulders of library computer users, YouTube contains everything from movie trailers to WWF clips to guys just beating each other up.

My question is should the creators have told their fans upfront that the videos are fictitious. Some viewers are cool with the news: She’s made up, big deal. Some viewers are pissed, and I can’t really blame them. They have gotten to know Bree and invest a lot of emotional energy in her and her situation. They’ve expressed their concern and sympathy through their comments. We empathize with fictional characters all the time: Connecting to a character that we care about is what makes a story come alive for us. But it’s a big difference between investing in a fictional character and a person we believe is actually sitting at a computer somewhere in the world, talking about problems and ordeals experienced just hours ago. That bunch of hurt and angry people out there are not imaginary, they’re real.

I believe that in the art and craft of storytelling and filmmaking, our primary purpose is to entertain. Philosophize, allegorize and politicize to your heart’s content, but when it’s all said and done, the audience needs to have moved a good story, and whatever manipulations therein serves as a means to the story’s end. Lonelygirl 15, for its novel approach to storytelling, left some folks feeling lied to and hurt: That’s not entertainment.

I raise the question about the ethics and responsibilities of the storyteller to his/her audience. We want to engage our audience with an emotionally compelling, thought provoking, entertaining story. But how much do we hold back from them, how far do we lead them on, how hard do we yank their chains, how much “offensive” material do we put before them until it pays off? Is the pay off worth it?

I’m not saying that the storyteller must surrender his/her creative views or freedoms so not to offend the thin-skinned – as I was forced to do several months ago – but to consider the consequences of what s/he is doing, and if the methods are necessary or merely self-gratuitous.
Post your thoughts and comments on the Lonelygirl 15 story (http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/09/13/online.mystery.ap/index.html) and on the responsibilities and ethical duties of filmmakers and other artists here on the blog.

Hey gang, just a quick note to talk about the Rome International Film Festival. I’ll write up more when I’m a bit more sober, but I just got back from a kickin’ party with FREE BEER.

I just want to say that this festival is very filmmaker friendly. These folks are bending over backwards to make sure we have a good time, and the city of Rome has been an awesome host. If you haven’t checked out this festival yet, there’s still two more days of films, parties and networking events.

The fact that everything is in walking distance is great. The whole town seems to be embracing this festival, and the audiences are here to enjoy films. While the festival is filmmaker friendly, there’s more than just an atmosphere of the same “industry” people gathering over and over. There’s a good mix of non-filmmakers wanting to just enjoy some movies.

Plus, I’ve met filmmakers from all over, including Australia, Britain, New York and Sante Fe.

So, why aren’t you here? (If you are, disregard that last sentence.)

I caught the August 17th screening of Dailies latest Ween project. The goal was simple, create a five (5) minute short inspired by the music of Ween and the form was kept fairly open: “Explore Noise. Non-sense. Stupidity. Satire. Parody. Hijack Genres. Don’t be shy. Don’t opt-out just because you don’t feel like you have a solid idea or a well-developed concept. Put on the headphones. Close your eyes. See things; create with them; create because of them; create in spite of them.”

A study was released a few weeks ago that linked the amount of sexually explicit lyrics in hip hop and pop music to teenage sexual activity. One NPR host asked a teenage girl what she thought of the sexually demeaning lyrics. The girl said she only listened to the beat, so the lyrics didn’t bother her. I remember giving my father that same line when he caught me and my sister listening to UB40s cover of Red, Red Wine. In his eyes it was a drinking song and being staunchly anti-drinking, the song was off limits.

Excluding the chorus, I never knew the lyrics to Red, Red Wine. Now that I’ve utilized the power of the internet I now know almost two decades after the song was re-released in 1988 that it’s about a guy who lost a girl and the wine is helping him forget. I really was only listening to the beat.

Are the beats and the music so good to some songs that neither I nor that girl even need the lyrics for the song to be good? Or are the lyrics to some songs so insipid and underwritten that there’s no need to dig any deeper? Or is the disconnect between lyrics and the music a natural phenomenon and it’s up to the listener to bridge the gap?

I’ve never heard a Ween album. If I’ve listened to a Ween song I was totally unconscious that I did so. So as I watched Ween Dailies I didn’t know what songs were being referenced or used in each short. Some shorts didn’t even use music and were slightly askew or blatantly absurd narratives based on a specific Ween song. This lack of a knowledge and experience base started me thinking about the intersection of music and visuals and to ask the question: Do the visuals need the songs?

Flashing back to the 80’s, the main reason I listened to A-Ha’s Take On Me was because of the video. The combination of rotoscope animation and live action sucked me in. Once again I’ve only learned what they lyrics are. If I heard the song on the radio first, would I have even given it a chance?

We’ve all had some show or movie catch our attention as we’ve been channel surfing. How often have we had a song really catch us off guard in the same manner?

Back to Ween Dailies.

Even when I couldn’t understand the lyrics or was even sure I liked the song, the visuals kept me engaged. And since I couldn’t contrast the Ween songs with the shorts, I could only base success on the shorts themselves. Did they work on their own? I’ll be honest, I think the shorts work in tandem but alone the majority fall kind of flat.

In Dailies Return to Pepperland and Dailies Fight Scene, many of those films stand up well outside of the original context they were created. More so than the other Dailies projects I’ve seen, I think this one requires some post-screening interaction with the filmmakers, which could be seen as either a negative or a positive.

The contrast between Pepperland and Ween is most pronounced since both projects centered on music. But why was Pepperland more effective than Ween?

I think the answer definitely lies in free association and how equipped is a filmmaker in recreating stream of consciousness through the use of visuals. Huh? What?

Music has always been a medium that inspires random thoughts and random ideas. And just like books, what one imagines profoundly varies from person to person. However in film, the combination of visuals and sound is more concrete. The red truck can only be a red truck and nothing can change that. In music and books the visuals go through an act of process and creation. In film, the viewer is almost strictly in the process mode. And the more one has to exclusively process a thing, the less they usually can experience that thing.

Without any grounding in Ween, I have to run through the act of processing the visuals and sound more so than if I knew a little something about Ween. Ironically, if I was too grounded in Ween the same might be true. At some point, the only way I can enjoy the show is to avoid processing.

So in Pepperland wouldn’t the progression of thought be similar? Not so.

I personally think on either side of the spectrum of fixed form and free form the viewer/listener is allowed to experience. In free form the viewer/listener doesn’t impose control they just let things happen and they can just sit back and experience. In fixed form, the viewer/listener has no control so again they’re free to just experience. It’s the nebulous middle where the waters become murky because the artist and her audience are often at odds at who should be in control.

In Pepperland, the filmmakers were clearly in control, they had clearly taken the lead. Any information you need or didn’t need the filmmakers provided it. All of the shorts in Pepperland were based on a specific song and thematically each short reflected that.

In Ween, the goal—at least from what I saw—was to create the illusion of free form when in reality they’re working in a medium that is decidedly fixed form. Music has no control over the visuals so it has an easier time. Film and video on the other hand includes both. Even when a filmmaker chooses silence over having a soundtrack, that choice is still part of the equation.

As soon as the film is switched on the viewer wants to be lead and when they aren’t they become frustrated. Unless, the filmmaker gives the nod that the viewer is in control. The sooner the viewer knows this, the easier the transition. Yet, since every inch of visual information that exists within the frame was already chosen, the viewer is tempted to fall back on being led. It’s the successful filmmaker that can short circuit that process and draw the viewer into just experiencing.

Think of it this way. What’s a song you have a strong connection to and why? I bet you associated that song with certain emotions and a general period in time: how you felt on a first date, reaction to a loved one’s death, where you were with your friend’s, being 13 years old,etc. Now do the same with a movie. Movies are like little worlds unto themselves. Rarely do we strongly associate other experiences with movies and when we do the experience is unique and can’t be replicated. With movies, you probably associate the first date itself with the movie than the actual emotions attached to that first date.

As a result, songs are much more mood reflexive and have the ability to alter mood. However, movies aren’t so flexible. How often have you popped in a movie to get into the mood? If you’ve put in a porno, you’re most likely already horny. The porno is just there to get things started, not there to get you horny. Music on the other hand, can literally get you in the mood.

So do the visuals need the music? For the filmmaker who isn’t able to effectively manipulate free form, most definitely. However, how many folks can do that? As for the filmmaker who’s playing in the fixed form sandbox the most likely answer is no, but the music sure does help. Ironically, most of the films seem to be above the music. Huh? What? Exactly.

For those who hung on to the end of this post, I salute you. To those who didn’t, I totally understand.

I haven’t said if Ween Dailies is good or not. “But didn’t you say they fell flat and isn’t that as good as saying it’s not good?” Yes, I’m saying they fell. But they fell flat for me. Although there were several I definitely enjoyed and overall I still had a good time. But “is it good?” I’ll leave that up to you to decide for yourself. As of this posting there are showings on August 19th and on August 24th-25th. Go check out the films and support these filmmakers. For more specific times, information and links for the screenings click on the CinemATL calendar on the right hand side of your screen.