Film

Beijing Punk by Shaun Jefford – Poster

Truly insightful analysis of the movie matched with deep knowledge of history & currency of punk. This guy gets it.

‘Beijing Punk’ is fast-paced and fun, with a fantastic selection of music from the cream of the Chinese punk scene being heard the majority of the time, and an engaging visual style that maintains a steady focus on the subjects at hand at all times.

The Impaler Speaks is a local music blog supporting indie music, indie film and indie life. Local is wherever you are. In their words

Good Review for Beijing Punk by The Impaler Speaks

Tags: Beijing Punk, Chinese government, Culture, Punk subculture, Underground culture

I’m enjoying the spoken word piece I Will Not Let An Exam Result Decide My Fate by Suli Breaks. It’s a great track with an amazing video.

Follow him on twitter at https://twitter.com/sulibreaks

I’m a father and have raised my kids (I hope) to value self reliance and life long learning. I have never been asked for a copy of my high school results. Until one job about 5 years ago, I have never been asked for a copy of my university transcript or testamur. With hindsight I should have run away from that job as soon as they asked for a copy of my degree, as they were more interested in proving they covered their arses than turning the business around.

I Will Not Let An Exam Result Decide My Fate||Spoken Word

Tags: art, music video, poetry, spoken word, video

Gesture 2 by Sanja Gjenero, Zagreb, Croatia

Should you use a free website from Tumblr or WordPress or Wix for the early days of  your indie film? You should register on those free services to grab your brand name. But I wouldn’t go live with that for anything other than a teaser or short.

What about getting your own hosting account and running something like WordPress self-hosting? Things have changed, don’t host your own software or blog.

If your film is a short you can select the free hosting from Tumblr, WordPress, Wix or any of those free top level domains. However if you are going to make more than one short film or a bigger project, you should get a top level domain at least in your production company name. So if your making “My Edgy Short” for the ProdCo Philberts Phantastic Philms you should register a domain name PhilbertsPhantasticPhilms (.com or whatever).

Tags: Blog hosting services, Blog software, Free web hosting service, Web hosting

The Eiffel Tower, Paris, France, as seen from the Allee Leon Bourgeois

One of the films I’ve worked on did “French Hours” for one day of the shoot. Chances are unless you’re a film production geek you don’t know about it. Worse still you’ve come here to find out just what French Hours are all about. Hopefully you read this before you vote on the request to work French Hours.

French Hours while most certainly not French, are when a film crew is asked to give up their meal break in return for grabbing something to eat from the craft services table or catering area on the run-in between doing other things. There is no lunch break and lunch is handed around while the crew works continuously.

Tags: Entertainment, Film, French Hours, Working Conditions

I was trying to find which movies I hadn’t rated yet on my IMDB list of movies I’ve seen - at least the movies I remember seeing there are lots of Westerns and SF movies whose titles I have no idea about.

Anyway the trick is to add the following characters to the end of the list’s URL

/?my_ratings=exclude

That will leave all movies that you’ve rated out of the list. If you want to see my Seen It list and exclude the movies you’ve rated go to http://www.imdb.com/list/DzIaduhe9sU/?my_ratings=exclude

I think you have to be logged into imdb for it to work.

Tags: Entertainment, Internet Movie Database

Image courtesy of imagerymajestic / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

All filmmakers want to get their shows seen, right?

Uploading additional, extra and behind the scenes footage of your movie is a good opportunity to promote your project, aggregate an audience and create a moment of connection with fans and followers.

However many filmmakers make these beginner mistakes

Newbie Mistake #1: Upload to proprietary, obscure, restricted or unreliable video hosting services

New audience may checkout your video once. Don’t make them register, signup, click-thru or share your video before they see your clip. Don’t use a service that crashes regularly.

Tags: Digital media, Entertainment/Culture, Video hosting, Vimeo, YouTube

The Device is a well executed, beautifully shot, science fiction short film with masterful special effects.

I’ll be showcasing great SF and fantastical shorts as I find them.

The quality of the lighting and camera work make this one special, Claude Lee Sadik and his team have produced something very special. I’m not sure what their plans to distribute this are, but I’ll give it a hand along. Watch it.

Short Sci-Fi Film: The Device

Tags: Entertainment/Culture, Sci-Fi, SF, Short film

Duncan Riley’s Inquisitor website fell into the amateur’s trap yesterday. Duncan went for the easy laugh criticising Disney pushing High School Musical 3 for Best Picture Oscar. What a sloppy piece of writing.

Most movies with a “For Your Consideration” ad in “the Trades” are contractually obligated by the talent contracts. Neither Disney, AMPAS members (the Academy), the Producers, Director or above the line talent expect to win an academy award except for possibly a music or technical award.

What the “For Your Consideration” campaign does is enhance the reputation and hence the careers of the professionals who made one of the most profitable movies of 2008. Disney is “in business with” these people. Disney may appear to be an impersonal factory turning out tween entertainment and merchandising, but those people produce those products. And all else being equal a “For your consideration” campaign also tells the rest of Hollywood that those people are players.

Tags: business, campaign, Film

We saw a preview of Juno tonight. It opens in Australia on 17 January 2008. Go see it, it’s the best film of the year. It’s as good as Little Miss Sunshine, American Beauty, Election, The Breakfast Club – I can go on.

It captures a voice of youth and the way you felt if you were ever a freaky little teenager. Juno reflects that youth is for the young but dealing with issues beyond our maturity is a life-long lesson.

Juno is a sixteen year old high school junior who falls pregnant after a one night fling with her best friend Bleek. She finds adoptive parents for the baby and the story develops around this smart alec, punk, clever, cute, insightful mother-to-be as she deals with: her feelings for Bleek, her other best friend Leah, her parents, the adoptive parents, pregnancy and school. Any more and I’d have to give spoilers.

Tags: Film, movie, review

We saw a preview of 27 Dresses thanks to 20th Century Fox and Metro Magazine – since 1968 Australia’s oldest, continuously published film and media magazine.

I’ve managed to somehow overwrite the original review – how frustrating.

I like a good romantic comedy. Most of my more blokey friends think I’m a bit suspect. However I’ve found 2 things to be self evident: 1) Chicks like rom-coms and chick flicks – this makes them great date movies with significant fringe benefits, and 2) after watching a chick flick most self-respecting women will happily endorse you excursion to the pictures with your mates to see the latest addition to the Alien franchise.

Tags: Film, movie, review