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Posts tagged: Documentary
Six days ago I wrote about “Eurocrime!” and the director using crowd-funding to finish his film. They still needed 5000$ for the post and today I saw that they already raised the money. It took them less than a week to complete their budget.
The idea of using crowd funding for a film isn’t that new. Filmmakers always did it. In earlier days by traveling with the film, private screenings or even house parties. But with the internet the whole concept seems to have a big revival.
A very good example is a doc I really like: “The Age of stupid” which raised almost 500.000€ with crowd funding!
Some platforms that offer crowd funding for filmmakers:
http://reelchanges.org/
…€, £ or ¥ are fine as well.
Looks like the guys have finished most of their film but now they need the last funding to license the film clips they want to use.
I liked the trailer, I like the genre but I most of all like the idea of websites like www.kickstarter.com as a tool to finance your film.
For those of us who can’t make it to Amsterdam IDFA is offering a livestream with Talks and Masterclasses. Cool!
BUT: Why aren’t they broadcasting the masterclass by Frederick Wiseman?!?!
“Don’t film, if you already knew your message before filming – just become a teacher.”
“The Good Soldier follows the journeys of five combat veterans from different generations of American wars as they sign up, go into battle, and eventually change their minds about what it means to be a good soldier.” (Quote from the film’s press kit)
I heard about this film today for the first time. Somebody called TheGoodSoldier started following me on twitter and I got curious.
The film’s website is fantastic. Simple and modern design with all the information and media you want. They put some clips, lots of frame-grabs and behind the scenes - pictures but also the press kit online. Thanks for that!
But the most important thing on the website is of course: The trailer. It’s one that makes you want to see this film. The style looks very american (not Michael Moore - style though) with strong music and talking heads. I admit that I am not a big fan of this kind of interviews (even though I tend to use them myself…) but in this trailer it totally worked for me. Just look at the eyes of the man on the picture above…
“The good soldier” will have it’s world premiere next week at the Hamptons Film Festival in New York and will later be shown at several other festivals in the US and over here in good old Europe. (Unfortunately Dok Leipzig is not on the list.)
Unseren Zweitjahresfilm “La Capsula” kann man nu auch bei der online Film AG anschauen. Der Film lässt sich einfach per PayPal bezahlen und kostet gerade mal vier Euro. Ein Schnäppchen also…
Mehr Infos zu dem Film gibt es auf larsgehrmann.eu: link Und mehr Musik von bitcrush findet man gratis bei myspace.com.
Today everybody can make films.
The tools are cheap and websites like youtube, vimeo, myspace and many others offer free platforms for presenting the results. So far no real news.
Relatively new are machinimas, films that are “shot” live in video games. There is quite an active scene of filmmakers out there as well as machinima-film festival, like bitfilm Berlin.
“Liberty City” by Claus-Dieter Schulz is such a film.
An atmospheric five minute animation set in the fictional “Liberty City”. A place all gamers will know from the famous “Grand Theft Auto” series. Watching this little film I felt reminded of Walter Ruttmanns documentary “Berlin - Die Symphonie der Großstadt” / “Berlin - Symphony of a great city” from 1927(!). No idea if “Liberty City” was really inspired by it but see for yourself:
“Liberty City” by by Claus-Dieter Schulz (2008)
Berlin: Symphony of a Great City by Walter Ruttmann (1927)
Serbian filmmaker Zeljko Mirkovic made an interview with Tue Steen Müller for a Serbian film magazine (presumably the only one they have…).
Naturally they talk a lot about the situation for documentary filmmakers in the Balkan States but in many ways their situation does not differ too much from ours here in germany. For instance: “Maybe the battle is lost, and now I’m not talking about television stations in this region, but in general, maybe this wonderful medium called television, which should also be open for artistic experiences, has already been taken over by the people who only want to entertain.” - I don’t know Serbian TV but I doubt that it is worse than RTL or Pro7 over here…
Confessions in a Digital Age (MobiDOCS)
Looks like filmmakers are not allowed to have a break from their “job”. Not even on vacation…
“Away” by Peter Mettler, a 3-minute short documentary shot with a mobile phone.
1978 latvian film maker Herz Frank did a short documentary about children in a cinema. “Ten minutes older” is simple, beautiful and for sure one of the must-sees in (documentary) film history. If you don’t know it; YouTube is your friend: 10 minutes older
30 years later NYT Photographer Robbie Cooper did his remake of the Herz Frank film. Time has passed and for todays kids gaming is more important than going to the movies or watching TV. This may be the reason why his four minute film shows kids playing video games.
But this is the only thing that changed in 30 years. Like the “original” he limits his camerawork to showing only the mimic and expressions on the kids faces. And like 30 years ago it’s simply fun to watch:
Every person has a story which is worth to be told. New York City has a population of eight million. Eight million people with eight million stories.
The NYT is covering each week one of these in a so called “Audio Slideshow”.
Beautiful black and white photography combined with audio interviews and ambience sounds create a certain atmosphere that works - at least for me - almost as well as a “real” documentary film. Link
