Recently my company, HD Studios, contacted to co-produce a half-hour high-definition (HD) television series entitled Journey to Hollywood. Each of the 13 episodes deconstructs a specific area of Hollywood cinematic production—financing, costumes, acting, etc. Journey to Hollywood was shot in 23.976 PsF (progressive frames), using one of our Sony HDW-F900 high definition cameras. Sony BCT 40 HDCam master tapes were down-converted to Sony DVCam 64 using a Sony HDW F500 HD deck, and offline editing was done on an Avid. Online, primary and secondary color correction were done in-house on an Avid
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It is an ironic metaphor that the most recent giant screen film to be funded with a grant from the National Science Foundation and investment capital from the Museum Film Network is Dinosaurs! Many large format filmmakers, distributors and exhibitors alike worry that this fractionalized industry is on the verge of becoming a dinosaur itself unless it reinvents the business from the inside out, both creatively and financially. That was the general consensus of those who attended the Large Format Cinema Association (LFCA) conference, held at Universal Studios in Los Angeles last April. The
DOCS ROCK, a bold new program developed for high school students by the IDA, is anchored on the premise that documentary films are a cultural art form that stimulates the development of basic principles of critical analysis. This program cultivates the ability to make judgments about media from a perspective of what is fiction and what is nonfiction, and expands this skill as it may be applied to all aspects of development, learning and human experience. The DOCS ROCK outreach program has steadily thrived and continues to grow. In December 2003, the curriculum received full accreditation for
'The Summit' opens in theaters October 4 through IFC Films.
In what is sure to be remembered as this decade's An Inconvenient Truth, Jacob Kornbluth's documentary feature debut Inequality for All tackles the increasingly unbalanced distribution of wealth among America's workers. Developed from the concepts of leading political economist and former Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich, the film uses Reich's wealth and poverty course at UC Berkeley as the through line by which the history of income inequality is simplified, explained, and exposed. Inequality for All screened on Thursday, September 26 in Los Angeles to kick off the IDA Documentary
In its sophomore year, Silverdocs—based at the American Film Institute Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland, and co-sponsored by AFI and Discovery Networks—became a hub for documentary makers. It was possible not only to see several of 75 documentaries, but also to attend a conference for working filmmakers and programmers and, of course, to network. Some ten feature films competed for the festival's top prize of $10,000 in cash and services, and two ended up splitting it: Carey Schonegevel's compelling and poetic pastiche film Original Child Bomb, which combines familiar and unfamiliar images
A temple entrance in Vientaine, Laos. Photo: Rachel Gardin Mark Earlier this year, I was invited to be a film envoy for the American Film Showcase (AFS), a cultural diplomacy program sponsored by the US Department of State and managed by the USC School of Cinematic Arts, with IDA and Film Independent as partners. I would be going to Laos for two weeks as the part of the first delegation of Year 2 of the AFS. Even before I boarded a plane in Boston on a Friday this past May, I had wondered what being a film envoy really meant. I arrived in Narita Airport, Tokyo, 16 hours later, and awaited a
'Let the Film Burn' opens October 2 in New York City.
'American Promise' opens in theaters October 18 through Impact Partners.