C:\sites\WIFVBlog_Includes\strings-en-us.txt Women In Film And Video









Forgot your password? Click Here.
Not a member? Join Now!

Home > Blog
Print Page |

Blog Archives

Lois Weber, film pioneer - Guest blogger : Linda Thornburg

You have one minute to list all the women film directors you can. Go! Don’t mind me, I’ll just hum the theme song to Yentl. “Papa, can you hear me?”
Time’s up. If you didn’t get Barbra Streisand, you’re as bad as most of my students. If you did get Streisand, give yourself half a point for listening. Give yourself one point each for all the other women directors you named (without researching) on your own.

Read all of Lois Weber, film pioneer - Guest blogger : Linda Thornburg

Doc Talk: Its a Musical Life

Contributed By Claude LaVallee

 Moderator: Felix Contreras, Reporter and Producer for NPR’s Arts Desk

Panelists:

Poull Brien, Filmmaker, Charles Bradley: Soul of America

Jay Bulger, Filmmaker, Beware of Mr. Baker
Ramona Diaz, Filmmaker, Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey

 Mandy Stein, Filmmaker, Bad Brains: A Band in DC


 I love movies, but there’s something about music, how its vibrations and rhythms can affect people, which is universal. Each filmmaker on this panel, in one way or another, sought to explore and understand people who channel music. What is it that makes some people able to access this sort of parallel universe and bring back to share with the rest of us truly wonder-full experiences? Well, for starters, according to these films anyway, such people seem to be unusually sensitive souls and, for them to go back and forth between there and here, they also need to be very strong.

 

Read all of Doc Talk: Its a Musical Life

Geoaesthetics and Documentary Film

Geoaesthetics and Documentary Film
Contributed by Claude LaVallee

How and to what extent does a filmmaker’s relationship to the geography of a film affect its aesthetics?

Read all of Geoaesthetics and Documentary Film

Doc Talk: Dynamic Duos

Contributed by Claude LaVallee

If you have a filmmaking partner, you know how much of an asset it can be; you also know it’s not w/o its challenges.

Read all of Doc Talk: Dynamic Duos

Detropia by Loki Films One on one with Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady

 ***Contributed by Melissa Houghton

Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady of Loki Films provided great insights into how they make their films by focusing on what they learned on their latest film “Detropia”.

Read all of Detropia by Loki Films One on one with Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady

If This Is What Opera Is Like

*** Contributed by Rebecca Bustamante

When Wagner completed his epic operatic cycle, The Ring, in 1874 his stage directions were more cinematic than pragmatic.  Limited by the technology of his time, he still produced it in 1876, and struggled with many mechanical challenges to the staging, including the Rheingold maidens, as would the many directors and producers who would follow him.  The central obstacle faced when staging Wagnerian opera is that the music itself carries the central core of the drama.  The score is so full and complex that adding intricate scenery or landscape only complicates the audience's perception of the story.  With these types of challenges to the mise-en-scene, the theatrical landscape must remain uncluttered so that the audience may use their own imagination to fill in the blanks to the drama without unnecessary distraction

Read all of If This Is What Opera Is Like

A Gentleman of New York

***Contributed by Rebecca Bustamante

Tracie Holder and Karen Thorsen, co-directors of the documentary film Joe Papp in Five Acts, were fresh from the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City when I caught up with them after the screening of their feature-length film last Saturday at the Silverdocs festival in Silver Springs, Maryland. The film is broken in to "acts" or segments that tell the story of Papp's life and career (which dominated his life), for example "Act II - Unto the Breech" uses a combination of black and white photos, historical theatrical footage and modern-day interviews to journal Papp's indelible mark on American Theater.

Read all of A Gentleman of New York

Under Maryland Skies

 

***Contributed by Rebecca Bustamante

Friday night it rained in Silver Springs, Maryland, but the crowd gathered outside in the plaza to view Under African Skies sat on the ground anyway.  They also gathered on steps decorated with mosaic tiles, sat on concrete ledges, and stood in groups to view Paul Simon's story about his journey back to Africa 25 years after the successful release of his album "Graceland".  This landmark 80s album was a cross-cultural collaboration between Paul Simon and South African musicians, including LadySmith Black Mambazo and Stimlea.  It also disregarded the cultural boycott in place against any artistic exchange between South Africans and people from other countries.

Read all of Under Maryland Skies

AIR Seminar: Designing for Participation

***Contributed by Melissa Houghton

Coordinated by AIR (Association of Independents in Radio), Designing for Participation presented examples of projects that were intended to involve a large segment of community members. What was most interesting to me was how they were planning for curation of community involvement - giving voice to lots of people but setting a framework so the comments would further the discussion rather than derail it.

Read all of AIR Seminar: Designing for Participation

Anatomy of a Trailer Panel Discussion at SilverDocs

***Contributed by Lois Lipman
 
 
Moderator: Steve Bognar, “Sparkle”, “A Lion in the House”, “ The Last Truck “
Sabrina Gordon of New Media Productions; Filmmaker of “Mrs. Goundo’s Daughter”, “Hip-Hop”, “Beyond Beats & Rhymes”
Jeremy Workman, Co-Founder of Wheelhouse Creative
Ryan Harrington, Director of Documentary Programming, Tribeca Film Institute
Adnaan Wasey, Head of POV Digital

 
 
The biggest headline for this fascinating session was that when making a fundraising trailer quickly tell your story and show what’s at stake. Also its most important to show your rich characters and convey your intimate access to them.

Read all of Anatomy of a Trailer Panel Discussion at SilverDocs