For a reason that has since been lost to me, during my last year of college in 1990, I volunteered to write a thesis on something called "reader response" criticism. Stanley Fish was probably the most fun author on my bibliography and, if you know Dr. Fish, you can imagine that my honors thesis was not much fun at all. I toiled on the project for months. I spent whole days weighing whether to include the word "tractus" in my title. On long breaks from fruitless writing, I would wander down to the Charles Theater, Baltimore's seedy art house and, if I didn't like what was playing there, I'd go
Latest Posts
It wasn't too long ago when documentary films were relegated to the realm of PBS programming and occasional network specials. The emergence of cable television and alternative programming over the past decade-and-a-half has changed the broadcast options for viewers and documentary filmmakers alike. Led by cablers such as HBO, the Sundance Channel, Independent Film Channel, Showtime and Bravo, these programmers have provided outlet and exposure for some of the most varied and novelistic documentary programs to date. One the more innovative cable channels to emerge recently has been TRIO, a
Last year Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine created a lot of waves, one of the biggest of which was that of money; the film became the highest grossing regular format documentary of all time (earning $40 million worldwide). That money wave inspired politically conservative Icon Productions to commit $10 million (more than twice the published cost of Columbine) to Moore's not-so-conservative upcoming project, Farenheit 911. Did Columbine's profit also set in motion a new wave of excitement over documentaries with theatrical exhibitors? Not really. Columbine was not only the most profitable
'The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz' opens June 26 in Los Angeles , and June 27 in New York and other major cities.
After several false starts, personnel shifts and delays, Silverdocs, the AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, finally launched in June with a promising mix of professionalism, elegance and energy. Held in the brand new AFI Silver Theater triplex (stadium-style seating, plush armchairs, crisp and high-quality projection), and with related events hosted at Discovery's next-door headquarters in the Washington, DC suburb of Silver Spring, Maryland, the festival also debuted a new building and a new relationship. The AFI (American Film Institute) programs the festival in its new theater, and
A client once asked me if the legal and business issues concerning an audio-visual project would change, since mediamakers are producing more projects on video than on film. I explained that the change in format was irrelevant and that the fundamental legal and business issues concerning any media project would still need to be addressed. These issues include the mediamaker's need to secure the appropriate personal, material and location releases, licenses for such pre-existing materials as musical compositions and recordings on a project's soundtrack, archival footage and photographs in the
Technically, there was not much to discover at the 2003 IFP/Los Angeles Film Festival, held in June. For the past couple of years since Independent Feature Project (IFP) took over the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival (LAIFF), it has tried, with some success, to promote the festival as a world-class showcase of independent film. The hope was to put the festival on equal footing with such luminaries as Sundance, Cannes and Toronto. Last year's fest showcased a thought-provoking, fun and wonderfully digestible lineup of new, edgy films, many of which arrived at the festival without
'Code Black' opens June 27 in Los Angeles.
What if there was a documentary on every night? What if your local newspaper hired, promoted and integrated documentary features in each issue? What if photojournalists were now more than just picture people—what if they were encouraged to be storytellers and long-form editorial craftsmen? Does this sound like a far-off fantasy—something born of the over-zealous imaginings of would-be news gatherers? Well, it's happening right now at the Washington Post. John Poole is one of the videographers of CameraWorks at washingtonpost.com, and he and his team are leading the revolution that converts
The summer of 1969. Clearly the world was about to change––or end––and at the age of 13, I was not going to miss it by going away to summer camp. So every morning I rode my ten-speed to the high school for Chappaqua Summer Theater. Chappaqua, New York, is a town that takes its public schools very seriously, and the community had wisely responded to the hippie threat by quietly turning all its children into artists. Everywhere you looked, the arts were in some kind of hormonal flower: if we weren't throwing pots, we were building flats or writing folk songs. At lunchtime, there was a