By Melissa Ferrari

July 20th, 2018 marks the 100 year anniversary of the first animated documentary, Winsor McCay’s The Sinking of the Lusitania in 1918. In celebration of 100 years of this genre, we take a look back at McCay’s masterpiece and celebrate some of the fantastic independent animated documentaries that have since been featured at the Slamdance Film Festival.

While the question of veracity remains a point of contention for nonfiction animators even today, the genre pioneered by Winsor McCay still allows for vast creative potential. Practically, animation is a particularly invaluable tool for independent and DIY makers. While the conventional live-action documentary might turn to archival imaging or the daunting task of creating a tasteful live action re-enactment, animated documentarians can single-handedly depict any time, person, or place in the past, present, or future with just a pencil and paper. The use of animation has a variety of advantages: animations can convey what can’t be captured photographically while still providing compelling, emotional imagery. Filmmakers can depict events that aren’t physically visible to the eye, historical events that weren’t captured on film, vulnerable documentary subjects that need to maintain anonymity, events that take place in the mind (such as emotions or dreams), or even speculative futures. As an independent animated documentary, The Sinking of the Lusitania illuminates the unique process of the independent animated documentarian: the filmmaker often fills the role of director, animator, and researcher.

The Sinking of the Lusitania

While animation had been used previously in nonfiction work, The Sinking of the Lusitania is widely identified as the first commercially released animated documentary. Using elegantly rendered effects animation, subtle realist compositions, and informative text, McCay created a visualization of the tragedy surrounding the Lusitania. The Lusitania was a British passenger liner that was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine in 1915. Of the 1,959 passengers aboard the vessel, 1,198 people drowned, including 128 U.S. citizens. Although the United States did not directly respond to the attack with a declaration of war, the incident is considered a contributing factor to the United States’ entry into World War I. According to animation historian John Canemaker, McCay’s primary motivation to create the film was “patriotic zeal.”

As McCay claims in the film, “The Sinking of the Lusitania” was not only “a historical record of the crime that shocked Humanity,” but “the first record of the sinking of the Lusitania.”

The Sinking of the Lusitania was self-funded by McCay and created with assistance from John Fitzsimmons and Apthorop “Ap” Adams.¹ McCay used ink, crayon, and pen on celluloid, live-action sequences, and photographic images to create an account of the Lusitania sinking that mimicked the aesthetic of contemporary nonfiction media.² There was an over-saturation of war films on the market at the time McCay’s film was released, and there were several other contemporary film productions based on the events surrounding the Lusitania.³ To set itself apart from these other films, which were predominantly live-action historical dramas, The Sinking of the Lusitania branded itself as the only “record” or “documentation” of the Lusitania’s demise, which had not been captured photographically on still or moving film.⁴ As McCay claims in the film, The Sinking of the Lusitania was not only “a historical record of the crime that shocked Humanity,” but “the first record of the sinking of the Lusitania.” Although the text in the film is manipulatively emotional and sensationalized, the majority of the actual images created by McCay were not overtly melodramatic and were the closest anyone had seen to a real visualization of the event.⁵

McCay used a variety of cinematic techniques to convey realism and contextualize his film as a document of truth. The majority of the animation is composed and illustrated in a way that mimics what a camera might have captured if observing the Lusitania’s descent from a safe distance. By employing patient timing, McCay allows slow action and long pauses that feels like live action. The simplified realism of McCay’s rendering style lends itself to a feeling of truthful depictions rather than artistically manipulated emotional visualizations.

McCay is known to start his films with expository live-action scenes that emphasize (and sometimes exaggerate) the laborious animated filmmaking process, and the opening scenes of The Sinking of the Lusitania feature a variety of strategies to show the process of documentary research and animation production. The opening scene places the viewer as a witness to the vital act of the filmmaker, McCay, acquiring knowledge from an expert on the subject of his documentary, Mr. Beach. The following shot shows a large team of animators, but in reality, McCay only used two animation assistants who aren’t even shown in the scene. As Canemaker describes, these phony, dramatized re-enactments serve to “emphasize the importance and difficulty of the production.”⁶ Similarly, McCay uses the scene with Mr. Beach to provide evidence into the truth claims by placing the viewer as a witness to his research.

…even in the earliest forms of animated documentary, directors were concerned with legitimizing the animation as a documentary medium.

Despite their artifice, these opening scenes show the unique process of the independent documentary animator: McCay serves as a researcher, animator, and director. The paratextual and aesthetic strategies used to contextualize the animation as nonfiction also reveal that even in the earliest forms of animated documentary, directors were concerned with legitimizing the animation as a documentary medium. However, McCay’s desire to present his film as an objectively true documentary is unsubstantial. While The Sinking of the Lusitania is a gorgeous film that is very influential and important in animated documentary history, contemporary viewers of the film as well as viewers today recognize that The Sinking of the Lusitania is ultimately a propaganda film fueled by McCay’s political beliefs.

Animated documentarians today face the same questions of how to convey authenticity, truth, or factuality to their audience, and given that animation is a medium that is entirely constructed by the animation artist, animated documentary comes with a unique set of concerns.

In recent decades, animated documentary as a medium has become an increasingly popular topic in animation and documentary discourse, with the persistent question of whether animation serves as a legitimate form of documentary. Subjectivity and the relationship between fact and truth are points of contention in all nonfiction filmmaking, particularly with the extensive postmodern discourse on the constructed nature of live-action documentary film. Animated documentarians today face the same questions of how to convey authenticity, truth, or factuality to their audience, and given that animation is a medium that is entirely constructed by the animation artist, animated documentary comes with a unique set of concerns. Ethical issues of representation and accuracy are magnified when the entire image is fabricated by the animator, and the animated documentarian must be accountable to verifying that their aesthetics are respectfully authentic to the subject. However, an increasingly complex understanding of the relationship between veracity and the absence of total objectivity in documentary filmmaking has allowed animated documentary to thrive without the burden of conveying truthiness.

While the question of truth remains relevant, a broader understanding of nonfiction animation filmmaking has allowed for modes of experimentalism, poetic documentaries, and a move towards Werner Herzog’s concept of “ecstatic truth.”

While the question of truth remains relevant, a broader understanding of nonfiction animation filmmaking has allowed for modes of experimentalism, poetic documentaries, and a move towards Werner Herzog’s concept of “ecstatic truth.”With the increased focus on production of animated documentary in the past few decades, today is a particularly flourishing point in the history of nonfiction animation. The Slamdance Film Festival, as one example, has increasingly highlighted films that push the medium of animated documentary forward into exciting new territories.

Animated Documentary at Slamdance Film Festival

As a particularly invaluable tool for the independent creator, animated documentary aligns well with Slamdance’s independent spirit. Films screened at the festival have shown a breadth of approaches to independent animated documentary. Handmade forms of re-enactment are a common approach in films such as Fraser Munden’s The Chaperone (2013), Gabrielle Kash’s Lorem Ipsum (2017) or Matthew Salton’s Richard Twice (2016). By using animation to visualize scenes from the documentary audio, the filmmakers can explore sensationalized imagery that emphasizes the emotional nuances of the documentary subjects. The Chaperone and Richard Twice use hand-drawn animated styles that explode with surrealist visions and psychedelic abstractions to amplify the emotional state of the film’s storytellers. The raw punk aesthetics in both films fuel a Fear and Loathing style visual storytelling that complements the 60s/70s environment.

Freed from the conventional documentary concerns of photographic indexicality, animated documentarians can also employ the narrative potential of experimental techniques and privilege visual poetry over didacticism. The majority of animated docs featured at Slamdance have used hand-made animation, which allows an exaggerated level of emotion and draws the subjectivity of the animator’s hand to the foreground. Artists such as Sheila Sofian and Brian Smee embrace abstract sensibilities that evoke a sense of memory and nostalgia, for example in Sofian’s A Conversation with Haris (2002) or Smee’s Big Surf (2017).

In A Conversation with Haris (2002), Sofian uses visceral textures and visual metamorphosis to illustrate an interview with a young Bosnian immigrant, creating a complex portrait of the way a child experiences war. The ethereal nature of Sofian’s relentlessly morphing and disintegrating paint-on-glass animations leaves the viewer with a sense of fleeting instability, bringing the viewer closer to an emotional understanding of Haris’ experience.

Brian Smee’s exquisite experimental animated documentary Big Surf (2017) engages with the history of the St. Francis Dam collapse, a tragic flood disaster contemporary to the events in The Sinking of the Lusitania. Smee uses soft, organic abstractions and long pulsing landscape shots to evoke a sense of loss and memory, allowing the viewer to reflect on the disturbingly relevant themes of climate change, water shortages, and human-induced environmental disasters today.

Ainslie Henderson’s Stems (2015) poetically captures the enchanting process of stop motion puppetry, flattening time using stop motion animation to poetically discuss the wonder of puppet building. The initial live-action introduction in the film shows the tactility of the materials in stop motion puppetry, and as the pacing of the film progresses from live-action to time-lapse, the process of constructing a puppet is revealed. Gradually, the timing techniques transitions from time-lapse to fully animated frame-by-frame stop motion animation, capturing the sublime emotional experience of an animated puppets autonomy.

Melissa Ferrari is an animator and documentarian. Phototaxis, her animated documentary that draws parallels between Mothman, a prophetic and demonized creature in West Virginia lore, and Narcotics Anonymous, the primary treatment program in West Virginia’s addiction epidemic, screened at Slamdance in 2018.

Footnotes

¹ John Canemaker and Maurice Sendak, Winsor McCay: His Life and Art, 151–152.

² Annabelle Honess Roe, Animated Documentary, 15.

³ Michael Inman and The New York Public Library, “The Sinking of the Lusitania: How a Wartime Tragedy Occasioned a Landmark Animated Movie.”

⁴ Stephen Hanson, Patricia King Hanson, and Frank N. Magill, Magill’s Survey of Cinema: Silent Cinema Vol. 3., 995.

⁵ Inman.

⁶ Canemaker 154.

The post Then and Now: 100 Years of Independent Animated Documentary appeared first on Slamdance.

A Veteran Battles for His Daughters through Filmmaking

by John Charter

The making of our short creature art film, Remission, is full of disastrous filmmaking war stories — and it all began with an actual war. More on that later. Remission is foremost an “art film,” meant to be interpreted like you would a poem or a painting, with the creature costumes serving as moving art pieces. The concept centers around an unknown soldier in a state of living paralysis or a purgatory loop. Three creatures emerge as outer-body extensions of his war trauma and the ensuing nihilism that he struggles to overcome. Visions of an estranged daughter haunt the man and lead the creatures on a vast, lonely pilgrimage in hopes of restoring their once sacred connection. The symbolism of the film is inspired by the true story of Remission’s co-creator, artist Paul Kaiser. Paul served in the US Navy’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) and was held hostage in Iraq for a possible sale to Al Qaeda. The loss of control from this event brought on a deep plunge into an existential crisis and the life he knew fell apart. The film is a reflection of his current mission to emerge from the loop and reconnect with his children.

My greatest hope for the film is that his daughters will see it and one day understand how much their father loves them.

The project was instigated by Paul when he came to me with the “simple” idea of making a short film with creatures for his daughters. I would direct and he would handle all the art — the creature design, production design, and drawings. As we wrote the script together, it became more and more elaborate as neither of us figured out how to say no to one another! As a close friend of Paul’s, what kept me especially motivated was his heartbreaking ongoing battle for joint custody of his daughters. He has not had contact with them in years and tirelessly makes brilliant artwork for them that gets returned in the mail. I admire how Paul owns his own part in this matter, but at this point, there is no justice until he and his girls are reunited. My greatest hope for the film is that his daughters will see it and one day understand how much their father loves them. The choice to include the creatures is an effort to connect with his girls on their level now, if they get to see the film as children. And if they watch it in the future as adults, the intent is that they will comprehend some of the deeper ideas within the film, allowing their inner child to connect with their father’s love.

For six weeks, my house became a creature-making sweatshop.

For six weeks, my house became a creature-making sweatshop. After sketching out designs, Paul was figuring things out on a trial and error basis. Neither of us had any experience with creature filmmaking. My bathtub was converted into a indigo fabric dyeing station for Marquis d’Sea, the most labor intensive creature. His fur was made from individually pulled strands of used burlap coffee bags that gave him a naturally tattered and worn texture. Paul was inspired by the ghillie suits he made while serving as a US Army Infantry Scout. The multiple submarine eyes are restless and always recalling the battles he cannot unsee. On our first day of filming with Marquis d’Sea at a beach in Malibu, our actor struggled to hold up the mask for extended takes as it weighed almost 50 pounds!

None of this footage made the cut. Still, we are grateful for this initial failure as the redesigned mask was much more actor-friendly and looked even better without the heavy horns. As Paul watched costume-making videos from Henson Studios, he was constantly tinkering with the engineering of creations to make them lighter and more robust. Keeping the creatures “camera ready” was especially high maintenance due to damage from the harsh environments and lack of ideal transportation. Paul’s open fantasy about “burning these costumes after we finish” is likely what kept him from going insane.

When we began casting I doubted that any actor would be excited about wearing a heavy costume that covers their face. First we attempted to work with non-actors and it was a struggle. Then I did a “Hail Mary” post on LA Casting. “Anyone new in town who is looking for adventure?” To our surprise, pro creature-actor Alan Maxson responded and through him we discovered a vibrant LA Creature-acting community. As we filmed new scenes we could immediately see a huge difference with fluid and believable body movements. Our pro creature-actors were able to pull off some tricky maneuvering, including one shot where they bow and offer gifts with paws that are not dexterous.

My longtime collaborator Rainer Lipski slummed it as our cinematographer, especially compared to his usual work on features and commercials. We camped the whole time, but that was often one star higher than the nearest meth-den desert motel. Rainer was limited to a basic DSLR video kit with the exception of the Ronin stabilizer and a set of old Leica R-Series lenses. My 5D Mark iii camera was modified with a companion firmware known as Magic Lantern, which allowed us to capture beautiful RAW image sequences instead of low quality H264 video. Rainer made my “hacked” 5D sing in the beautiful Southern California light and then Nick Sanders, our favorite Colorist, took it to the next level.

The downside to Magic Lantern is huge file sizes, a cumbersome workflow, and choppy playback. However, the forced limitation of not having unlimited takes was a benefit — this heightened our focus on set, just like when you shoot on film. Magic Lantern also has resolution limits, but Rainer and I feel that the 4K plus trend is overrated as a measure of image quality. Our Camera Assistant Marcello Peschiera generously offered his RED Camera for free, but I politely declined because I prefer the photographic feel of the Canon sensor with Magic Lantern. He mentioned on our 128 degree Fahrenheit shoot day that his RED would have overheated. Another benefit of the 5D is that it can take a beating.

We aimed to compose each shot as if it could be a standalone painting. An extravagantly inefficient schedule was created in order to only shoot during perfect magic hour lighting conditions. Each morning we woke up before sunrise and filmed one setup. Then, no filming until late afternoon magic hour. In between, we would travel hundreds of miles looking for any terrain that might be even better than the locations we scouted a few weeks prior. This painstaking approach resulted in 20 shooting days and 3 pick-up days for what will be a 7-minute short film. Maybe that’s sensible since our nearest comparison would be a nature doc — with laughing hyenas that do not want to be filmed!

The shoot was a war against nature — the blazing desert sun, snakes, and off-road driving to remote areas without cellphone service. One evening, a rattlesnake slithered into our camp and could not be scared away. As it got dangerously close, Paul’s Special Ops instincts kicked in as he grabbed a shovel and chopped off the snake’s head. We only had cots and no tents, but the desert stars were our consolation for having to keep one ear open for rattles.

Bad weather, safety concerns, wardrobe malfunctions, flat tires, and getting lost all led to lost days and huge delays. The biggest blow was when we lost the location that the entire script was originally based around. Our crew had driven 6 hours from LA with a weeks-worth of rented gear and the owner of the location simply changed her mind. We could not afford a suitable location replacement so we were shut down for over a year as I worked on corporate videos and saved up for the remaining costs. Altogether, our total damages (or total budget) was $20K. This may seem excessive for a short film, especially since we were mostly volunteers, but most of our budget went to costume design materials, gas, and rented SUVs. Considering all the unique environments we used that were not conveniently near each another, our budget could be viewed as barebones.

Filming was not too awful for Rainer and me, but Paul was put through hell wearing the creature costumes during our shoot in Death Valley. When he took off a mask, he would be entirely soaked in sweat, joking that he had nobody to blame but himself. Because this film is dedicated to his girls, he would not make any compromises for comfort. In later shoots, he walked barefoot through a burnt forest and sank into the ocean’s icy cold depths without a wetsuit. Subconsciously, he was affirming that he would do anything for them. In the film, the creatures do the same. We were creating the meditative tone of a biblical pilgrimage in which creatures travel great distances across desolate landscapes to evoke a sense of loneliness, longing, and commitment at any cost. The creatures, who are an extension of Paul, would travel to the end of the earth to make their offering.

On our last day of creature filming, we were at a burnt forest in Santa Clarita. Javier Santoveña was acting as Artemis, the creature with the jagged crown and a turquoise and black striped dress. We were in position for the final shot of the day — AKA the martini shot. Out of nowhere, on a calm and cloudless evening, a giant thundercloud began to roll over the hills. We scrambled up the mountain for a better angle. As the camera pulled back on the slider, the lightning struck perfectly on either side of the creature mask. My eyes were on the verge of tears as we witnessed this miracle. The movie Gods were smiling down on us.

This project from hell (or heaven, depending on the day) is in the final steps of post-production. We are forever grateful to our solid cast and crew who made it all possible, and they can be found in the description of our Vimeo teaser. We did audience testing with our rough cut and won Best Experimental Film at Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival, which was the best festival I’ve ever experienced.

At a gallery exhibit of the film, our co-producer Sarita Choy, Paul, and I were shocked that 5 year-olds were some of our biggest fans. Some dragged their parents back daily and sat through multiple viewings as if hypnotized. Through these test screenings, we discovered areas for improvement and are currently completing an animated component.

When I said “disaster” earlier, I meant in the tradition of films that are borderline too elaborate for the resources at hand. For any filmmaker who feels doomed, watch The Wizard of Oz DVD special features. The film was shutdown multiple times with four director replacements and awful setbacks such as the Wicked Witch catching on fire. Plus, they went over budget by one million dollars in 1939. The main director Victor Fleming once said, “Don’t get excited. Obstacles make for a better picture.” I believe this was the case for us.

---

John Charter is an LA based director who made the creature art film Remission with artist Paul Kaiser. To learn more about the film, visit remissionfilm.com.

The post Creatures of War and a Father’s Love appeared first on Slamdance.

Tips and Insights from Slamdance Festival Programmers

We know the festival submission process can seem pretty mysterious and we want to make submitting to Slamdance a little more transparent. As our motto proclaims, we are filmmakers here to help fellow filmmakers. Most of us are alumni of the festival who have been in your shoes—confused and nervous about navigating the festival circuit with our first films. Somehow, through some combination of grit and magic, we are now on the other side as Slamdance programmers! We’ve been there, and we’ve been here, and we want to help.

How programming works at Slamdance

• We’re all filmmakers and we’re all volunteers. Almost all of us have screened films at Slamdance.
• Every film submitted is watched in its entirety by at least two different programmers.
• We have around 150 programmers from throughout the US and around the world. They are watching your online screeners at their convenience from wherever they are in the world.
• Every programmer has an equal voice. We don’t have lower tier screeners acting as gatekeepers.
• 100% of films selected come from our submissions pool. We don’t make promises to friends or celebrities. They have to submit just like everybody else.
• After every film is watched and scored at least twice, our programming teams meet in person. We spend a few weekends in late October and November rewatching and discussing high scoring films and duking it out, until our Festival Program finally emerges from the rubble of our battles.
• For Slamdance 2018, we received over 6100 submissions and programmed 95 films.
• Before they were household names but after they screened their first films at Slamdance, the Russo Brothers, Emma Thomas, Rian Johnson and Ana Lily Amirpour all participated in Slamdance programming —and that’s just a few examples from our 25 years of the festival. So you never really know who’s going to be watching your film!

“No one programs a film at Slamdance. We all do. Often messy, uneasy and always passionate, it’s the fairest process we know. “ — Peter B. (Narrative Features)

Here are some tips and insights from members of our programming team about what we love to see, how we program, and everything else in between. Read on to get a peek inside the minds behind the 2019 Slamdance Film Festival.

On standing out

“Roger Ebert had a great quote: “It’s not what a film is about, but how it’s about it.” Most films are about a subject in the same way a lot of other films are, and as a consequence they are forgettable. Ask yourself how your film is about its subject, and don’t be satisfied with an easy answer.”

“In order for your film to get programmed, at least one person on the programming team has to LOVE it. It has to be their favorite — so that they’ll fight for it and rally support for it. The converse is also true — if your film is really good but nobody loves it, the chances that it will get programmed diminish. If I can get the film I love programmed, it’s likely that I will understand and support another programmer’s favorite film even if I don’t necessarily respond to it, because I will respond to their passion.” — Blake R. (Narrative Features)

“Most films fail at the “let’s make a film about…” phase. Most of the rest fail during the development of that concept. In most cases, it seems like the filmmakers didn’t challenge themselves hard enough to make something unique and vital. Roger Ebert had a great quote: “It’s not what a film is about, but how it’s about it.” Most films are about a subject in the same way a lot of other films are, and as a consequence they are forgettable. Ask yourself how your film is about its subject, and don’t be satisfied with an easy answer. Push yourself to make something unusual, specific, and meaningful.” —Randall G. (Experimental, Animation and Narrative Shorts)

“MAKE IT UNIQUE. Might be a good topic, but not a very imaginative approach. I want to encourage you to do something risky, something more “out there” and I’ll love seeing that in between all the “regular”stuff. Be aware that there are TONS of filmmakers out there. Don’t underestimate your “competition.”— Sandra B. (Documentary Shorts)

“If you are in film school, try to make something radically different from the types of films produced in that school.” — Anonymous

“Being genuinely surprised by a short is becoming one of the qualities I’m most excited — and often convinced by. I don’t mean clever twist endings, but an overall feeling of unexpectedness in short-storytelling.” — Sébastien S. (Narrative Shorts)

“If I watch a film that’s the SAME as yours, both films are out. If there’s two of something, it’s not original. Avoid politically-driven, unless you have the BEST version ever, and a fresh way for me to digest it.” —Patrick S. (Documentary Features)

On knowing your festival

“I think the most important thing to note is to know the festival you’re submitting to and their requirements before blindly submitting.” — Bryce F. (Narrative Features)

“My feature documentary film was officially selected in 2017, and I fell in love with the people at Slamdance. But before that, I fell in love with the “idea” of the festival itself. Punk rock. A true indy festival — untainted, and designed to break brand new talent— talent that gets a bit crazy (what Sundance used to be, before it started premiering TV sitcoms). That’s the brand I look to service while I’m programming. So—while I’m watching your documentary, in the back of my mind, I’m constantly saying: “Is this Slamdance?” And it’s easy to tell when something is, and isn’t.” —Patrick S. (Documentary Features)

“Films that get a high score from me: unique or thought-provoking storytelling; well-executed, nontraditional visual style; no glaring mistakes; no gender/racial/cultural stereotypes or offensive representations; weird stuff. I think it’s important to understand Slamdance’s mission, and how that relates to what films are ultimately chosen (for example, a Disney-like animation is likely not going to be accepted).” — Zachary Z. (Animation Shorts)

“Check out some of our past years programs! They are usually out of the box and one of a kind with their story and filmmaking.” —Sarineh G. (Narrative Shorts)

On the sweetness of shortness

“I think the most common issue I’ve encountered is filmmakers taking an interesting idea and stretching it out too long” — Cory B. (Documentary Features)

“The real question here is, “Do you think your film could be shorter? Should be shorter?” If you do, then please make it shorter. We all watch hundreds of hours of film. There’s nothing wrong with setting a mood or hitting an emotional beat, but sometimes filmmakers end up with a runtime that is right on the cusp between a short and a feature (say, 35 or 60 minutes long), and these can be difficult to program just from a logistical point of view. We will program things that are these lengths, but the films in question better be damn good. If you’re on the fence about whether to shorten things up or puff them out, aim to shorten them up. Get some outside perspective. Consider telling your story in a different way. Get in touch with the essence of what you’re trying to say and make sure everything you put on screen can be tied directly back to that essence. If the film is tight, doesn’t waste any time, and stays true to itself, then any length will work. When I programmed short films, I thought 12 minutes was the ideal length, but two of my favorite programmed shorts were 30 minutes long.” —Beth P. (Doc Features)

“Shorter is better, sometimes. I’m programming doc features and thought many of them would have made much better short subject films. There are plenty of subjects and topics that deserve or need 90+ minutes, but there are also plenty of topics that can be effectively covered in a much shorter format. I would rather watch a captivating 15-minute film than one that drags on for over an hour.” —Ashley S. (Doc Features)

On quality of artistry vs. quality of technology

“You don’t need a huge budget or fancy equipment to make an interesting film. It’s good for beginners to remember that, in my opinion” —Ashley S. (Doc Features)

“In this day and age, the technical elements have to be strong—it doesn’t cost that much money to make your film look and sound really good anymore (it takes talent). For me, the acting must be really strong. Too many films, even those with little to no resources will be very well executed. If yours isn’t it, will struggle in comparison. This doesn’t mean they have to be known or famous actors — they just have to be very believable performances that don’t pull me out of the story. As a filmmaker going into film festival submissions, be aware that we are seeing 100’s if not 1000’s of films. So in order to stand out you’ve got to turn all the realities of your filmmaking circumstance, even if its a lack of resources, into a positive for your film. I want to see a better film because of your circumstances not an inferior film. If you don’t achieve that someone else will.”— Blake R. (Narrative Features)

“Films with handsome cinematography, professional-level acting, and other ‘calling card’ attributes are extremely common. All of these things can be great, but they are nothing without unique development of a strong concept. And it’s far easier to forgive poor cinematography than a poor concept.” — Randall G.(Experimental, Animation, Narrative Shorts)

Don’t mind us, make what compels you.

“Don’t chase after what you think programmers might like, because at the end of the day, out of thousands of shorts, there will literally only be a handful that ALL the programmers agree on. The rest are varying degrees of “yes’s” and “no’s” so you’re just dealing with (what sage programmer Randall calls) “a bunch of asshole programmers with opinions.” No single programmer has the answers, but as a collective we become Slamdance.” —Shaun P. (Narrative Shorts)

“What should I be doing?” This is an unanswerable question — the universe is vast and wide and guidance is scant. With regard to finishing a film you hope to screen at Slamdance: you should be working on your film, digging into yourself, and finding something uncomfortably vulnerable or incendiary to share. You should remember that us programmers don’t hold any sort of real formula. The turnover in programmers, the inclusion of new voices every year, means that there’s no list of requirements to check off. Only vague advice that is nonetheless true: make something true to yourself, take risks, be unusual, but also please be technically competent in your work. Keep the audience in mind, and keep them challenged. —Beth P. (Doc Features)

“The bottom line for me is this: Sincerity and heart. When a project feels forced it loses its essence and its truth. I think that this is very important.” —Clementine L. (Narrative Features)

“I am inspired by your films every day. What I appreciate most about programming is getting a chance to hear you, see you, and better understand you through your creative projects. What I hope to impress upon anyone creating work that they plan to submit to a festival is, be authentic. Don’t try to make a film you think someone will like. Don’t try and improve upon someone else’s vision. Don’t choose a subject because it’s popular. Rather, I encourage you to make the film that only you can make. Be empowered to be as authentic to your vision as possible. Trust yourself. I assure you, you will find your audience. And I know I can’t wait to see your submission.” —Breven W. (Narrative Shorts)

Some Practical Tips for Sanity’s Sake (Yours, and Ours)

• We don’t really care about Cover Letters, tbh. Lots of other festivals do, but we don’t. We’ll take them, and we might even enjoy reading about where you are coming from as a filmmaker, but our programmers are really judging only what they see on screen.
• Read the freaking category rules and submit to the right category. We won’t disqualify you if you are wrong, but we are busy folks.
• Have test screenings with your friends or strangers who will tell you what they truly think. Do it early so that you have time to reflect and make changes. Take notes, and make sure to be confident in all the changes you make.
• We accept works in progress…but do understand that many of the films submitted will be completed works or at least, picture-locked. Edit your film down until all the fat is gone. How you edit is more important than things like color-correction and sound mix.
• If you are submitting a work-in-progress, put a title card at the start of your screener that denotes what you are still working on. Then, programmers will know that, for example, the distracting scratching sound is not an artistic choice but just needs to be, and will be, cleaned up.
• We can’t update your screeners if you have a more updated version. Beyond the fact that it’s a little unfair to filmmakers who submit later and pay a higher fee, we just don’t have the bandwidth to change out screeners whenever filmmakers make a change to their film. (But there’s a VIMEO LOOPHOLE. If you submit a Vimeo link as your screener, you can change out the video uploaded to that link whenever you want. And there’s nothing we can do about it.)
• Submit early if you can!!! When you submit to Slamdance, whether it was the moment submissions opened or at 11:57PM on the absolute last day, your film will be watched by 2+ programmers. That’s a promise. But in the last 2 weeks of our 4-month long submissions period, we receive about 25–35% of our submissions. (Last year we received 1500 films in the last 10 days!) And then we have 3 weeks to watch them all twice! So if you submit early, you will more likely get programmers relaxing on their couch, drinking a cold beer and unwinding to your film after a day of work. If you submit late, you might get a programmer who has already watched 15 feature films that day, cramming to watch everything before our final deliberations meetings. Submitting early also gives programmers more time to reflect and absorb your film, and they may even change their scores after comparing it to others they watch (for better or worse).
• “When in doubt — submit! You never know what the programmers will like or what might really resonate with someone. We make art so we can share, so please do share!” —Ashley S. (Doc Features)

The post What the heck does it take to get my film into Slamdance? appeared first on Slamdance.

How to Turn Your Idol into Your Mentor into Your Collaborator

Gina Prince-Bythewood (“Love and Basketball”, “Shots Fired”) and Tina Mabry (“Mississippi Damned”, “Queen Sugar”) are unstoppable forces on the rise — writing, producing, and directing for TV and film while mentoring the next generation of filmmaking talent.

Gina premiered an early short film at Slamdance in 1998 (“Bowl of Pork”, starring Dave Chappell) before her breakout first feature “Love and Basketball”. The film that redefined sports films and broke new ground on how women and people of color are depicted onscreen inspired Tina Mabry to abandon her LSATs and apply for film school. Tina’s 2009 debut feature “Mississippi Damned” (starring Tessa Thompson with cinematography by Oscar nominee Bradford Young) won Gina’s admiration and respect and the two filmmakers have since become mentor/mentee, friends, colleagues, and are now collaborating on an upcoming film.

Both Slamdance alums, they came to our offices to discuss their experiences navigating the industry with all its highs and lows, and offered some valuable wisdom for fellow filmmakers. Listen to their conversation in it’s entirety or read some highlights below.

“I mean, making a good movie is hard. Getting a movie made is a miracle.”

Tina on meeting Gina after watching “Love and Basketball” and stalking her for years:

Tina: The first time we actually met in person — it was at Sundance. It was like a little writer’s intensive. Ava [Duvernay] ended up introducing us because I was scared to go up to you. Just coming up and finally meeting you and being able to tell you how much of an effect you had on my life, I couldn’t help but cry. I couldn’t help it because you changed my life — and it’s not just me, you changed all our lives that we’re working right here today. And I guarantee you, you ask any one of us black females that are working as directors, producers or writers in this industry, we all bring you up. You changed the shit and you broke the mold.

On making films worth giving your all to:

Gina: I don’t know who said it, but the talent is in your choices. And you know, sometimes it’s hard. Like I’ve been making movies for 15 years, well 18 years now and I’ve made 4. Which, 4 in 18 years doesn’t seem like a lot, but…

Tina: It is for us.

Gina: For us, and knowing what goes into making a film. Like this is a year, year and a half of your life. Now I have a family. If I’m going to be away for that long or that singularly focused on something, it has to be something I’m passionate about. Not all of us have that [luxury], but that’s the thing that’s going to give us longevity. That we care about what we’re putting out into the world, and not only care about it but care about it enough to give all of ourselves to it. Because that’s what it takes. I mean, making a good movie is hard. Getting a movie made is a miracle.

Tina: That’s what I always try to think about. Would I do this if they weren’t paying me? And if the answer is yes, that’s the damn project I need to take.

On Stamina and Work Ethic

Tina: I don’t feel like I have the luxury to fail. If I fail at this then I’m not going to get another chance. So all of my all has to go into it. And for me, it’s like if I don’t sleep for this much time, it’s fine. I’ll rest later.

Gina: I just wish every girl could be in sports because of what it teaches you. For me, it’s “outwork everybody.” When I was training, and even now. If I’m not writing or studying a movie or something, I feel like, “damn, somebody else is,” you know? So outwork everybody. “Leave everything out on the floor” is a big one for me. You literally had to pull me off the floor at the end of the game of basketball. And now, with movies, I’m the first one there. And then I shoot, I go home, and I watch dailies. Then I put together my shot list, and then I go to sleep for a few hours, and then I’m back. And you have to do that.

That whole work ethic that not everybody has in this industry, it drives me crazy. Yes, I know there are work hours and stuff like that, but you take the opportunity to show that you care about this more than anybody. And you should if this is your passion. You should want to be on set or want to be in the office, or want to be reading everything you can. I don’t want to hear you “want to go home.” Because I didn’t, you know?

“And to see the sexism and racism he had, that was something that really wasn’t surprising but it still hurts. The fact that he did not even have the respect for this particular show that he claimed to love. No, he loved himself.”

On dealing with disrespect on set as black female directors:

Tina: This particular [1st AD], like starting on day one, I could tell in prep that he wasn’t there and I just went ahead. I was looking at the agenda and I see nothing on this page. I see “Time: 9 to 5” and there is nothing else on there. So I’m like, “Well, where’s my concept meeting? Where’s my production meeting? Where’s my tone meeting? Where’s my show-and-tells?” Nothing was there!

What I learned is that he did not like a black woman — any woman, over him. And I had seen him actually 1st AD for a male director, because I was covering an episode that I wrote. So I saw how he treated him. Now I saw how he treated women.

And then on the one day…May 11th is the day my mom passed away. So every May 11th can be a little bit hard for me. So I had the crew together and I said, “So you know, I’m always laughing and happy and I’m still going to be laughing and happy, but if I’m having one second where I don’t respond real quick, just know this is a tough day for me, and that’s it.” And he immediately jumps in and gets on me in front of the whole crew trying to embarrass me, saying I didn’t know what I’m doing with these explosives and the squibs. And I said, “No, actually I do, I had this script 4 weeks before you had it. And I don’t ever like to be like this, but you’re pushing me to that point. Well, who’s name is on the call sheet on the front every day? It’s not yours, it’s mine.”

And you know, we had to bring in the studio and the network, and they’re worried about me. I’m like, “I’m fine. Worry about him.” We keep on pushing, and every time we came in on time, regardless of what he did.

It was just so unprofessional. And to see the sexism and racism he had, that was something that really wasn’t surprising but it still hurts. The fact that he did not even have the respect for this particular show that he claimed to love. No, he loved himself. And he let his own prejudices interrupt making a great show and the rest of us putting everything into it.

Gina: That’s the great thing about us moving into positions of power because there are people like that that permeate the industry. But the more of us that get into power, the more we actually don’t have to put up with that anymore. We can just let them go. And that first AD, having the arrogance of thinking that with you as a producer on that show, he could behave like that and there’d be no repercussions?

But it’s understanding our power as well. I think we’re not used to firing people. I think courage is a habit. And while you don’t want to have to go through things like that, the more you go through it, you’ll have the memory of it. And you’ll know how to handle it for the next time.

I dealt with a horrible experience with an actor on my…I’ll just say my second feature. After “Love & Basketball” being such an amazing experience, to come up and now I’m working with a star, and somebody I respected so much — to find out he is an incredible asshole. It was so bad. I had a female DP, Tami. He hated her too. He would say out loud in front of people that women shouldn’t be DPs, the camera’s too heavy for her — because she did her own camera. And the crew was starting to say, “God, we feel sorry for you guys.” And we didn’t want to hear it. I don’t want you feeling sorry for me. But he was a producer and I had to put up with his behavior.

Then the last day, we were shooting a big dinner scene with everybody and once he had finished his coverage, he said “we’re done.” And walked off set. He had walked off set twice before and each time I was like, “well, I guess I have to stop.” But it was the last day so I said, “you know what? I’m not done,” and we kept shooting without him. And suddenly who comes back? This dude sits back at the table and participates. And it was the ego of “Oh my God, she’s actually shooting without me.” But it took me the entire movie to get there. And then, I kicked myself — why did it take me so long to figure out how to deal with somebody like that? But it was so foreign to me.

He pulled something the very first… I should have known. We were supposed to meet before the movie started to talk about his character, talk about the script, talk about the shoot and we were supposed to meet at a restaurant. He never showed up, stood me up. Didn’t call, nothing. I was sitting at the restaurant for an hour. Then I got a call from the other producer that said — there was no apology, no nothing, “you can meet him at his house at 10 tonight.” And it’s funny, my husband was like,“uh… No.” But you know, being young, I’m thinking, “Well, I got to meet him! I’m the director!” But thank God I didn’t go. But that set the tone and I should have confronted him at that point. But it was the hierarchy thing of “he’s a huge star” — at the time — and “this is how it must be in the industry.” But it doesn’t have to be, and that’s because of us talking. Building a community among us like what we know other filmmakers have, you know? They’re hanging out and talking and we just have to do that more and more.

On commanding a set through respect and consideration:

Gina: The director sets the tone on set and if I’m not yelling and bringing that negative energy, I don’t want somebody else to because it poisons the set. Nobody works harder because they’re scared. They’re going to work hard if they’re inspired and they feel a part of it and it’s strange that people don’t get that.

The first thing I say when I’m interviewing a 1st AD is that extras have the hardest and least respected job and I want them respected. And I don’t like that they have to wait for everybody else to eat. I hate that. It just seems rude. They’re part of the crew. Without their performances, the show or film is not going to be as good. You can tell a lot about a 1st AD by how they talk to our background actors.

Tina: When we were on “Power”, there was a key gaffer who had to drive to Vermont from New York every Friday night to see his wife and kids and then come back Sunday morning. So for me, I’m looking at those things. If I know exactly what I want to shoot and I got what I want plus some specialty stuff, let me go ahead and get him out of here so he can drive to his family safely. The magic that we’re creating is having someone from transportation say, “thank you for having a short day because I had a chance to read a bedtime story and tuck my 8 year old daughter in for the first time in months.” That means a lot to me.

“…it feels like there’s a sea change and we get excited for a second but then you hear the numbers and you’re like, “Damn, where is the change?” But yes, there’s an absolute change happening. It’s incremental.”

On being a good mentor and mentee:

Tina: I consistently try to watch what you[Gina] do, what George [Tillman Jr.] does. I try to watch what Kasi [Lemmons] does. I just try to look at y’all and still learn because I feel like y’all are mentors. I don’t know if y’all have accepted me as a mentee but I just threw myself up in there. Please mentor me! Because that’s the thing, y’all haven’t ever said “no” to helping. You didn’t know me from nothing, and you sat and read my pilot script, had me come over to your house multiple times. We’re writing it in our socks! And that’s the very script that has gotten me every single writing job up until “The Hate U Give”. Every last one. And that’s you.

Gina: Well, no, it’s you, because the reason why I was happy to sit with you and talk with you is your script was so good! That’s a scary thing when you respect somebody and they send you a script. I was like, “God, please be good.” I already knew you were good from your movie, but then reading your pilot, I was like, “ok, she’s for real. Oh damn, she’s a writer.” So it was inspiring to help you because I want to help people who are dope. And then the fact that you take in…not everybody can take notes, I’ll say that. But you took notes and kept working on it, and working on it, as opposed to thinking, “this is as good as it’s going to get.” Not that we’re ever going to reach perfection, but you should be working towards perfection. Not everybody has that stamina. But you did. And I love to hear that other people are helping you because it’s not by accident. The talent is there and the personality is there. We want to help you because you’re cool.

On reaching back and paying forward:

Gina: It’s so important for us that once we get in, we gotta reach back. There’s so few of us. Still, it feels like there’s a sea change and we get excited for a second but then you hear the numbers and you’re like, “Damn, where is the change?” But yes, there’s an absolute change happening. It’s incremental. But I really do believe that it wasn’t necessarily the industry itself, but it was those of us reaching back and shepherding or pushing others in the industry to take notice. It’s important that now that we’re in, one: to do our best work absolutely. And two: who do you see? What recent independent film, short, or script makes you say to yourself, “damn, this person is dope.” What can I do? And it’s not always giving them a job. I mean, Kasi just talked to me and said she believed in me and she didn’t know me. I just left that meeting feeling empowered. So, there’s different ways you can reach back and help folk. And that’s what we have to do to help this industry. Because the opportunity’s there, but it’s up to us at the end of the day to find our folk.

Tina: I try to do my best, especially when I’m directing an episode, to get the studio to let me bring a few mentees on. Just so someone can shadow me, because that’s something that I found the most pivotal and most important. I really thank Melissa Carter, our show runner for Queen Sugar Season 1. She let two or three people come in and actually watch us break story in a room all day long. And afterwards some mentees were like, “nope, don’t want to do that.” And some of them were like, “yes, definitely want to do that.” But how are you supposed to know what you want to do if you can’t ever see it?

On adapting screenplays:

Tina: I’ve seen a million adaptations and a lot of them are just plagiarized. Literally. You can go through the book and you look across the page and the dialogue and you’re like, “You just copied and pasted, and you get the screenwriting credit for it.” And to me, to have someone actually be able to look at the material in its totality from the book and structure a story, then you actually wrote and adapted a screenplay.

Gina: The hardest thing about doing an adaptation — one: I do feel you have to stay true to the original because there’s a reason why people fell in love with that story or book. So why am I going to come in and throw it all out? That just feels wrong. But two: it can’t be your Bible, because you have to transfer it to film and it’s a different medium. You don’t need as much dialogue. You can use a look and that may take the place of a whole monologue in the book. But to be able to separate yourself for a moment is hard. Especially because with the adaptations I’ve done — I’ve done four now — I’ve worked with the author. But I want the author to love it more than anybody, even though I’m changing some stuff. But knock on wood, I’ve stayed really cool with the authors.

On their upcoming collaboration:

Gina: I guess we won’t talk about the title yet until it’s out in the world, but it is an adaptation that I wrote. But I knew I wasn’t going to be able to direct and the question came up, “who should direct it? And who do you trust?” I have an extremely tiny list, but you [Tina] were right at the top. But you know, it’s one thing for me to say, “I think this woman can do it, “ but you had to go in and knock out that meeting, which you did. I mean, I heard you made them cry, so…

The above excerpts have been edited for clarity and length. Edited by Adele Han Li

The post Gina Prince-Bythewood & Tina Mabry on Mentorship appeared first on Slamdance.

Slamdance Alumni share their experiences and tips for visiting Park City

Ah…Park City in late January. It’s freezing cold, it’s the middle of Utah, and everything’s super expensive. But for just a couple of weeks, the town swells with filmmakers, film lovers, press, industry folks and celebrities. The potential for opportunities when you have a group of people like this gathered together in a small, freezing cold ski town… are endless.

If your film is selected to screen at Slamdance, there are a million reasons to brave the cold, start another crowdfund, book an international flight and do whatever it takes to get yourself to Park City. Here are some first hand insights and advice on why you should come and how to navigate the experience, from Slamdance alumni who’ve done it before.

Because it’s worth the effort.

As a foreign (French here) filmmaker, the idea to go to Park City was a bit daunting. It’s far; it’s cold; distances and accessibility seemed somewhat uncertain… but having attended, I must say that the result was worth the effort. By far one of the most communal, immersive and genuinely cinephilic festivals I’ve experienced. As a filmmaker going to Park City, you get the very nuanced impression that you don’t merely attend Slamdance but that you become Slamdance. — Sébastien Simon, One-Minded(2017) & The Troubled Troubadour(2018)

Because it’s seriously one of the best possible networking opportunities

Park City during Slamdance/Sundance is an incredible place to meet people who could really elevate your career. Pretty much everyone you meet is involved in the industry in one way or another. Use it as a giant networking event. I think even just making an appearance at Park City in January adds credibility to your work/career. — Ashley Seering, Renewed(2015) & Sanctuary (2016)

If you haven’t attended a festival or only attend festivals near where you’re located, you tend to see the same people, which is great for making local connections. But traveling to a festival like Slamdance can really expand your connections and expose you to a bigger variety of artists and their work. —Cory Byers, Renewed(2015) & Sanctuary (2016)

There’s a lot of festival cross-pollination going on at Slamdance. Both times I had a film there I met other festival reps who asked to program it at their festival. I help curate a festival here in Boise, ID (Filmfort) and I get tons of work from Slamdance for it because I like a film and (sometimes more the case) I dig the filmmaker behind it. — Matthew Wade, It Shines and Laughs(2009) & Plena Stellarum(2017)

What to expect? At the opening ceremony, expect initiation via a one-by-one self introduction. Immediately you will understand that the “Slamdance family” is no joke. Many of the films selected have back stories of direct or indirect heavy lifting by Slamdance alumni. Slamdance co-founders Peter Baxter and Dan Mirvish are two of the most usual suspects. Whatever your endgame — sales, distribution, connections for future projects, shoptalk, watching great films, etc. — Slamdance has it all, and the staff, programmers, and alumni will do all they can to help. Personally, I’ve found that attending Slamdance offers much more than a tremendous opportunity for professional hustle. The benefits of joining Slamdance’s cross-section of “right now” independent world cinema stay with you months and years after that fateful week in Park City, Utah. — Forest Ian Etsler, One-Minded(2017) & The Troubled Troubadour(2018)

Because to make the most of the opportunity, you need to self-promote.

You spent all the money to make your film now it’s time to get a first-hand seat at a screening that can actually take your movie to the next level. Meeting people and encouraging them to come to check out your screening helps solidify a packed house and always remember you are your film’s best advocate. Hitting the streets prior to the premiere and on social media meant that distributors in the audience sat inside a packed screening room…. In the end, my film received a distribution deal that resulted in a national theatrical release, Netflix deal, and numerous streaming and VOD options for folks to see what I worked so hard and long to direct and produce. — Suzanne Mitchell, Running Wild: The Life of Dayton O. Hyde (2013)

Promoting my movie likely helped secure distribution, a small theatrical/VOD/SVOD release…pretty good for a film with a $45,000 budget and no movie stars. Down the line going to future film festivals directly led to my being hired to direct a second feature film for a significantly larger budget. — Blake Robbins, The Sublime and Beautiful (2013)

Especially if you’re coming with a doc short, or in one of those blocks that happen earlier in the day, go there to be a face to the film to get people to your screening. There’s nothing like the human connection that happens at festivals to evoke organic cross-pollination. — Beth Prouty (2010)

Because you can connect directly with your audience

At a festival you get to present and talk about your work to your audience. I think that opportunity alone is incredible. —Ashley Seering

Sometimes as filmmakers, we forget that there’s another part of filmmaking that you don’t always get the opportunity to experience: audience reaction. The actual audience reaction to your film is one of the most rewarding experiences you can have. — Bomani Story, Rock Steady Row 2018

Because there is A LOT of press in town

I highly recommend investing a bit and hire a good and affordable PR agency as the best press coverage we received for our film on the circuit was in Park City.

Having your film play at Slamdance allows you to take advantage of the press in town for Sundance as well, so you get the press that’s in town for two important festivals for the price of one. We were able to get lots of press for our film including reviews, interviews with film media outlets and TV, and some photos shoots. — Steven Richter, Birds of Neptune (2015)

The moment you are accepted to Slamdance put together a press kit and begin to reach out to media. Develop a hook to get your film noticed by journalists who cover the festivals and the surrounding region. Don’t forget to follow-up after sending media outlets your press info, a little gentle nudging can put your story on the front burner. And if you haven’t done this already, consider who your core audience is for your particular film and it’s subject matter, do your research and reach out. Target your core audience through social media and don’t be too shy to make phone calls inviting people from your core audience to attend your film. Let them know your film speaks to their interests. Email invites work too but there’s nothing like following up with a good old fashioned phone call. Now get to work. — Suzanne Mitchell

For our community of DIY weirdos

Slamdance’s commitment to truly independent cinema is 100% real spit. From all across the US, the Americas, Europe, Asia, and beyond, Slamdance gathers some of the world’s best outlier, independent films and filmmakers and cozily crams everyone into its venue on Park City’s main strip. This puts you elbow-to-elbow with a filmmaker peer group whose members are all blazing individual trails, creating unique cinematic ecosystems, and doing legit innovation — something the goliath down the street can’t offer. Slamdance is committed to growing outlier cinematic voices and ecosystems. Almost every Slamdance alumni I met these past two years has a story of professional collaboration with other alums. Personally, I later met fellow alums in England, South Korea, and Japan, and I’m collaborating on projects with several of them now.— Forest Ian Etsler

Don’t worry, it’s easy to make friends at Slamdance

Slamdance was the first major festival I got into. I felt intimidated. Even after I made it to the festival I had many moments of self-doubt showing among the talented and established filmmakers there. However, I wouldn’t trade the experience in Park City with anything else because by going there I met the most humble filmmakers and artists. My constant feeling of being too inexperienced was filled with encouragement and empowerment from those who gave me a smile back, a warmest hug or a few simple words saying how they resonated with my short film although we share different cultural backgrounds. —Cecilia Hua, Where Are You From? (2018)

It gets VERY PACKED at the Treasure Mountain Inn. It’s almost impossible not to meet people.— Beth Prouty

When someone can get up and talk after their work, then sees you do the same, it’s an instant ice-breaker. Your evening starts with polite admiration for each others’ work and ends with admissions of love after a tequila-soaked evening of too many parties and too little sleep. Some of my best filmmaker friends live nowhere near me, yet we keep in touch and show each other works-in-progress all year, after spending only a couple of days together in Park City. Same with the festival staff and programmers. I’m friends with lots of them now. You can also just as easily meet and hang with your punk rock film idols. Everyone is equal at Slamdance and that is super rare. —Matthew Wade

When my film THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL was chosen in 2014 to play the Slamdance Film Festival, I felt I had to be there…and this should be a simple thing but the catch for me however is that I struggle with social anxiety disorder therefore any social event is more complicated than I’d like it to be. But I wanted to celebrate the achievement — our film has just been picked from a group of hundreds perhaps a thousand. So why did I overcome my anxiety and go? — To celebrate. To see first hand an audience react to art that we’d created. I took it slow on the party side of things going to only two — those are for others to enjoy. I saw 3 or 4 films a day, I went to the seminars which were informative and truly inspiring. I’ve made lifetime friends and collaborators and exposed myself to hundred of films I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. So while I still struggle to put myself in social situations like a film festival, being able to do so has improved the quality of my life a hundred fold, maybe even a thousand. So when asked do I think people should go to the film festival that screens their film — my answer is a resounding yes. Just do it in a manner that feels authentic to you. — Blake Robbins

Because you’re part of the Slamfam

The Slamdance experience for me was something reminiscent of how a family Christmas holiday must feel — it’s the middle of winter, you’re welcomed with open arms and the Slamdance community is pretty much like a family — I for one don’t find it easy to engage with new people, but at Slamdance it all came so naturally.— Ricky Everett, After Arcadia (2013)

Some people I met have moved on in their careers or onto other things, but it’s great to think that we all met once in crowded-ass Treasure Mountain Inn. To be able to say, “We were there.” That’s not a feeling you get at bigger fests; they can feel much more impersonal. — Beth Prouty

Because…you just might find out you inspired Lady Gaga.

I sit at the bar of a Japanese restaurant almost everyday to have hot miso soup ramen while in cold Park City. I have some surprising conversations with the different people who sit down next to me. One lunch time, I chatted with a guy next to me about our favorite music videos. I said one of the exciting music videos I liked was Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.” I mentioned that in 2009, I had a film called “An Unquiet Mind” at Slamdance. After Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” was released in 2011, some of my friends congratulated me for directing her music video because they thought the “Born This Way” video looked a lot like “An Unquiet Mind”. The guy sitting next to me (who turned out to be a renowned cinematographer) said his best friend Nick Knight directed “Born This Way” and that he’d check out my film. The next day, we ran into each other at another party. He said he had watched “An Unquiet Mind”and called up the director, who explained that Lady Gaga saw my film and they used it as a reference to make “Born This Way.” He said the director apologized and said he would take me to dinner if I’m ever in London. —Rob Lo, An Unquiet Mind (2009) & A Doll’s Hug (2017)

Because sometimes we all need to feel a little encouragement to keep going

My first time getting into Slamdance was the gleaming light of restored hope on a long road clouded with festival rejections so, obviously I was elated beyond any doubts of attending.

The feeling of being in Slamdance was like finding a secret clubhouse in the woods you were somehow already a member of. A graduation thesis party where someone who didn’t go to school can shoot the shit with PHDs and film school rejects, as well as those that had nothing to do with film until they made whatever brought them here, all without any pretentious feeling of academic (or any other) superiority tainting the air.

Even though there were no direct “deals” or anything on the 12 min doc that got me in the door, many good things have since transpired and I attribute them all in part to that first trip out to Utah. If nothing else, the energy and feeling of support it gave me has carried me on until now, four years later, working on the first feature length project I have ever ventured on independently. —Sasha Gransjean, N6–4Q: Born Free (2015) & clip-135–02–05 (2017)

Go to Slamdance. Absolutely go. Don’t stay up a mountain unless you have a car built to get down it. But yes, absolutely go. I got to spend a weekend watching movies, taking about movies, watching more movies, dreaming about more movies I wanted to make. I met incredibly talented and friendly people who I’m still in touch with. And I got to spend quality time with dear friends. It was a supportive and inspiring fest, the kind of place that makes you want to keep making things. — Caitlin Craggs, Are You Tired of Forever? (2018)

Because it’s fun!

This is a great city with so much to offer: food, downhill and cross-country skiing, a whole host of parties and music. Slamdancers get a chance to meet each other through cleverly crafted activities designed by the festival organizers to create a real bonding experience. Cafeteria tray slay riding anyone? — Suzanne Mitchell

Because you NEED to.

Nothing exists in a vacuum, especially your first-time low-budget feature. Park City during the festival(s) is a madhouse. People are rushing around trying to catch the must-see film of the hour or trying to get into some party they’re not invited to. Chances are your film is starting off at a disadvantage. I mean, is it chock-a-block with movie stars? What? No? But your film is really good, right? Ground-breaking? Cutting edge and potentially genius? Great, but the truth is, you’re probably fucked. It’s going to get lost in the onslaught. There is just too much going on for it to stand out. That is, stand out without you. Seriously, you absolutely must be in Park City to wallpaper the town with the world’s most beautiful and inventive movie poster and to pound the pavement with your charm offensive and postcard sized invites. Even if you have the bucks for a PR agent, you will still need to do as much publicity as you can and that means boots on the ground — shaking hands and being excited about your elevator pitch even after you’ve told it 2000+ times to eyes-glazed-over-festival-attendees who are so burned out they just want an open bar and for people to stop talking for five-fucking-seconds. So, something is going to have to differentiate your film from the million others playing and that most probably is going to be you. You are your film! Who knows it better than you? Who can tell people why they absolutely must see it? Besides, do you really want to miss your screening? Hey! You’re in Slamdance! Don’t you want to be there as you are showered in rose petals and accolades and/or potentially rotten fruit and vegetables? And if you’re like most of us, perhaps you have the desire to make a second or even third film. Just how the fuck are you going to pull that off after all your relatives have learned not to put their hands back into the film finance meat grinder? You’re going to need to expand your base of suckers. And that means industry people or rich douchebags looking to get a producer’s credit. And just where are you going to find them? Trust me, they’re not hanging outside your local Walmart. That’s right! They’re in PC looking to become something their parents warned them against wasting their trust fund on. Which leads me to my next piece of advice — when you get there, have your next script (or slick pitch) fresh off the press and ready in your dirty, sweaty, little (non-Trumpian) hands.

Look, this may seem cynical and on the surface it is, but I’m on my third glass of boxed wine and I want you to be realistic. You’re going to have a blast. You’re going to love this once in a lifetime experience. It will be burned into your brain stem for all eternity. You’re going to meet people who will be your friends and mortal enemies for the remainder of your pathetic life. And should you be marginally successful, you’re going to need a long list of compatriots to complain to when things aren’t going your way or to ask advice from when things do go your way but you have absolutely no idea how to proceed because who the fuck else has been through the giant spanking machine that is the film industry? You’re going to need these people and with a little luck and talent they’re going to need you too. So, remember, Slamdance is a community. “For Filmmakers by Filmmakers.” You’re not an island and you really aren’t that good. You’re going to need some help. Join us. We’ll help you bury the bodies and pin the murder on someone else. And if that doesn’t work out, Dan Mirvish has perfected the art of baking a file into a cake. Be there AND be square. —Frank Hudec, Low (1995)

PRACTICAL TIPS

• Read what the office sends you!
• Have business cards and postcards with the name of your film to pass out. Put stickers with the screening times so you can reuse them for other festivals.
• Find the other filmmakers in your block and promote together. Reach out before the fest and make a group poster or postcards.
• Bring lots of Emergen-C and get your flu shot.
• Go easy on the booze and caffeine your first couple days and bring a water bottle to stay hydrated. The weather and altitude tend to sneak up on you.
• It’s cold outside and hot inside so wear lots of layers.
• Stay on the bus line if possible. Cabs and Lyfts are expensive and will have long wait times.
• If cost is an issue, find lodging at one of the nearby towns. You’ll need a car to get around but you will save significantly.
• Bring snacks.
• The Slamdance Welcome Toast (at the DGA Filmmaker Welcome) is TOTALLY WORTH IT. You get to a chance to make a strong impression even if you can’t stay for the whole festival.

Edited by Adele Han Li.

All photos by Lauren Desberg.

The post Why Come to Slamdance? appeared first on Slamdance.

The post The Russo Brothers Pay it Forward appeared first on Slamdance.

The post 2019 Slamdance Award Winners appeared first on Slamdance.

An Experiential Artist Manifesto by Dekker Dreyer

The traditional media world demands that we reduce our artistic output to a short string of adjectives that fit neatly on a 3.5 inch business card. Everything that artists like myself do throws this notion into chaos.

I see an email I missed from earlier. It confirms that NASA is going to participate in a panel I’m planning at Slamdance DIG (digital, interactive, and gaming) — this year I’m an organizer. It’s 4am and I’m looking out across Hollywood excited for the possibilities. I’m one of a new wave of creators that’s merging interactivity, virtual reality, filmmaking, and live events into a hard-to-explain jumble of an art scene. It feels like I’m working twenty or more hours a day and I feel alive.

This week I’m launching an interactive animated film called Joy Ride with BroomX, a company in Europe that outfits spaces like hotels with 360 degree immersive projectors. Audiences will experience Joy Ride exclusively in this full room projection format at partner locations like Catalonia Hotels. I’ve never worked in this format before because it didn’t exist until a little over a year ago. This kind of shoot first, ask questions later approach is indicative of not just the kind of work that I produce, but the landscape of how immersive content is made. It’s a challenging laboratory of exotic platforms in unexpected locations — creators are one part theme park engineer and one part film director. Each project seems to have its own quirks that are completely different from the last. It’s the wild west, but at the same time it’s just how things are now. I can’t imagine settling on a set of guidelines. It’s always about each project being bigger and more engaging.

The traditional media world demands that we reduce our artistic output to a short string of adjectives that fit neatly on a 3.5 inch business card. Everything that artists like myself do throws this notion into chaos. A few years ago I put the television landscape on the backburner and moved squarely into the immersive media universe. I started a production company called Clever Fox with my wife and partner Julia Howe. Since then I’ve bounced between creating augmented reality touring shows like the 80’s set horror experience The Summoning, virtual reality interactive experiences, 360 degree documentaries and shorts, music videos, apparel, feature films, snapchat lenses, even original lenticular art prints that now live with buyers like Bob Odenkirk. My work has been experienced by millions of people, but the natural high of this falls apart when I’m asked what I do for a living. “A little bit of everything,” I say, shrugging my shoulders. I have no clear answer to give. The inevitable follow-up conversation where I frantically try to connect the collectable VHS release of my feature film The Arcadian, my work with special FX houses, theme parks, and even building an interactive spy museum for the video game Hitman 2 comes off sounding more like a lunatic conspiracy theory than a CV.

I know that the predominant school of thought is that you can either do one thing very well or you can do several things half-assed. My generation of creators flies in the face of this by embracing one of the key facts of 21st century life — that you’re required to be a life-long learner.

I know that the predominant school of thought is that you can either do one thing very well or you can do several things half-assed. My generation of creators flies in the face of this by embracing one of the key facts of 21st century life — that you’re required to be a life-long learner. If you don’t evolve you’ll become unemployable and obsolete. The tangible effect of this economic reality is that you’re going to breed a generation of polymaths. It also helps that we’re mostly digital natives, so that we can take the rapid pace of changing technology in stride.

The best way to explain this is to get a little nostalgic. I’m old enough to remember a world where computers filled giant office buildings instead of fitting snugly in your pants pockets, but I never worked in that world. I never sat at a drafting table and got my hands covered in ink or had to load film into a motion picture camera unless those were specific creative choices. In my professional life the computer and I developed together. I made my first animated short at age 12. It was created on a Wacom ArtPad II with software called Fractal Design Sketcher; I’d rotoscope footage that I recorded frame by frame using an underpowered video capture card and my VCR. At 13 I was building virtual reality worlds (VRML) and cg models with Caligari Truespace. I still use a Wacom drawing tablet, it’s just much larger, and my VCR has been replaced by Adobe Premiere and SD Cards. I’ve traded Truespace for newer programs like Maya, Unity, and Mudbox, but fundamentally my workflow hasn’t evolved much since before I could drive. My first real film was a short called Closed Circuit, which was commissioned by Miramax the year I turned 21. It was shot on digital 8 video specifically to be shown online as a sidecar project to the feature film Naqoyqatsi. This was four years before youtube bought their domain name. We can talk all day about how new and exciting digital media is, but for artists like myself we’ve been waiting a quarter century for the world to catch up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’d be lying if I said that this isn’t partially motivated by the shaky viability of independent traditional media projects. It’s not a secret that over the last decade it’s become even more difficult to make a profit on indie films and records. That’s driving forward-thinking creators to look at the horizon and run toward the greener pastures of what might be there. We’re also not the first generation to try this. For whatever your opinions may be about Andy Warhol he was right about at least two things. Beyond predicting the timely notion of everyone getting their 15 minutes of fame, he was also the prototype of the 21st century artist. Not only has a Warhol-like notion of remixing and repurposing become the dominant artistic form of communication, but he popularized the idea that an artist’s body of work could transcend any medium and still retain the artist’s voice. Warhol might not be a direct influence on meme culture or hip-hop, but he was absolutely the biggest canary in the cave for the current artistic era. Warhol also dabbled in what we’d today call experiential events. Shows like Exploding Plastic Inevitable brought together films, light shows, and musical performances to become the forerunners of the kind of experience you get at venues like Meow Wolf. The baton has been passed around from Warhol to Burning Man to Banksy’s Dismaland and it’s come crashing down on Los Angeles like a ton of technicolored bricks.

On any weekend in LA you’ll find some kind of event that has an experiential or interactive exhibit attached to it. What gets lost in these events is a sense of artistic balance. There are two extremes right now. Any digital artist who pays a fee to a concert promoter can pop a tent next to a t-shirt booth in the corner of a warehouse and hope people find them through a cloud of marijuana vape. It’s frustratingly punk, but at least you’re representing yourself and your work. On the other end of the spectrum is something more complicated — the corporate digital art world. This is a world of tech demos and tradeshows. A company will commission a piece of art to showcase the technological advancements of their newest widget. Companies will largely strip away any deeper meaning or creator’s signature from the work. The work is further reduced to a dubiously credited talking point in a press release about venture funding or corporate partnerships. This has both the negative side effect of separating the art from any kind of true sense of authorship by the artist and feeding a culture that expects digital art to be intrinsically tied to new pieces of technology. If you develop a killer work of art using tools from a year ago you’re fighting an uphill battle to get it seen.

Audiences and writers are left asking themselves where all the great interactive artists are. They’re in the back of warehouses in art districts all over the world covered in sweat and dead tired from handing out fliers on street corners.

This cycle of new and different tech married to bland content has created an environment where even the press doesn’t completely know how to engage with interactive art. I understand their frustration. To write about anything you need to contextualize what you’re seeing and if that context is that experiences are always linked to new hardware you start to think that there are no artists making quality independently produced work. The media is being fed a steady stream of press releases about higher bit rates and slightly faster chips and I don’t blame them for starting to think that the only value in interactive art is when it’s showing off some new gadget. Audiences and writers are left asking themselves where all the great interactive artists are. They’re in the back of warehouses in art districts all over the world covered in sweat and dead tired from handing out fliers on street corners.

I’ve been very lucky. I’ve been able to straddle the line between brands, tech companies and artistic integrity, but for every person like me there are a staggering number of creators out there who don’t have the kind of access you get from being in a major city; especially one with an ecosystem like Los Angeles. Immersive creators with access need to build bridges with talented artists who don’t have it. We need to stick together and learn and teach and give opportunities. As part of this mission I designed a class that’s available at Columbia College Chicago Online about creating virtual and augmented reality projects and I’m working with Slamdance for the same reason.

This all comes back to 4am, looking out over Hollywood, thinking about Slamdance’s DIG. As someone who is acutely aware that I’m drifting between creative epochs I recognize how much DIG matters. This year’s show is a turning point. Alongside the gaming content that the show has heavily featured in the past there’s more virtual reality, augmented reality, immersive theater… all kinds of interactive art projects that blur the line between digital and physical. This is the type of showcase I’ve been waiting for and I know that audiences are going to love it.

This revolution in media isn’t something that’s happening on some far off calendar date, it’s something that’s already happening. It’s been bubbling to the surface for decades and now we’re drowning in it.

We’re also going full steam toward building a true community from the disjointed world of interactive art. We’re bringing together emerging artists with past alumni and speakers from places you wouldn’t normally think have much in common. On the same stage we’re hosting representatives from NASA’s The Studio at JPL and the founder of Lost Spirits Distillery. How are they related? The Studio creates interactive art installations which communicate NASA data in engaging ways, while the Lost Spirits Distillery tour has smashed through all kinds of barriers by creating a Willy Wonka-style experience to excite people about the science of making rum. They both take pretty dense subjects and make them accessible to the general public through interactive art. It’s a prime example of how DIG is representing the convergence of storytelling and it feels like home.

After all is said and done I could go on and on about how this is the future or how the next five years will do this or that… but I’d be disingenuous. This revolution in media isn’t something that’s happening on some far off calendar date, it’s something that’s already happening. It’s been bubbling to the surface for decades and now we’re drowning in it. That’s why I’m up at 4am, working on a new project, feeling excited and counting the days until DIG.

---

Dekker Dreyer is a filmmaker and experiential artist. His work spans television, feature film, books, graphic novels and virtual reality. He is the creator of Columbia College Chicago’s VR/AR producing program and is a member of the Television Academy.

Dekker is co-curating Slamdance’s 2018 DIG Showcase, opening at LA Artist Collective from September 13–15. DIG features new and unseen works by emerging visual artists and indie game developers from around the world. Admission is free and open to the public. For more info, please visit Slamdance DIG.

The post The Revolution in Media is Already Here appeared first on Slamdance.

Tarell Alvin McCraney is an award winning screenwriter and playwright. He cowrote the screenplay for 2016’s Moonlight, based on his original play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Tarell most recently wrote the screenplay for High Flying Bird, directed by Steven Soderbergh. High Flying Bird had its world premiere at the 25th Slamdance Film Festival in January 2019 and was later released by Netflix. 

Tarell talks to Slamdance co-founder Peter Baxter about his influences, working with Steven Soderbergh, being a black artist in the industry, and how the sports world that High Flying Bird depicts has played a role in the way American society commodifies black bodies for capitalist gain.

The post Screenwriter Tarell Alvin McCraney on ‘High Flying Bird’ appeared first on Slamdance.

By Max Wilde

Like probably all of you, my life is plagued with older professionals who tell me to “grow up,” “be realistic,” and “always have a dream,” but “understand that a realistic career comes first,” etc etc. Don't listen to them. Fuck dreams. We don't dream of making movies. We find ways to make them now, with the help of friends with empty couches, food stamps, and broken laws. I’m here to argue for the possibility of film outside its industry form, not only as an accessible and immediately doable alternative (for people who hate being an employee as much as I do), but more importantly as a form that has specific and crucial advantages over the financed, professionally staffed, and strictly standardized film producing technique. I think it's important you know that approximately one and a half food service jobs were quit to make A Great Lamp. A Great Lamp is a DIY movie made by 7 friends with no budget or resources. If you want to check it out, shoot me an email at maxkazaam@protonmail.com and I’ll give you a link. Having said that, you don’t need to watch it to read this piece and understand what is being said here. Seeing the film being referenced is mostly useful for the reader who says “I like the idea of what you are saying but it would never actually work.” We, in fact, use this filmmaking approach. It is not theoretical.

Film is the youngest major art form in existence. What do you think music sounded like when it was only a little more than 100 years old like film is now? I think it probably sounded like hitting rocks together. Our favorite movies of all time are the moving image equivalent of hitting rocks together. I can’t think of anything more exciting than knowing that we are all participating in the birth cry of an entire form of expression and that we stand at almost the exact edge of uncharted territory. That’s why nothing could confuse me more than hearing that there is a “correct way” to execute a movie. 

There is a standard execution template, no doubt, and I’ve worked on more of those than I’ve ever wanted to. This standard template generally consists of above-the-line creatives with “superior" art brains headed by a director. These creatives take command of grunt workers doing their jobs as they are told. Ideally, the director’s centralized vision is realized through the labor of these grunt workers. That vision is then able to generate a return on investments when the finished product falls neatly in line with statistical data showing what a target demographic audience is willing to accept and purchase tickets to.

This isn’t unique to the film industry though. The food and beverage industry, the automotive industry, and the home furnishing industry all operate using this same system. I don’t consider film to be any more dead or inhuman than I would any other major industry. In fact, I bring up these core similarities because, like film, these industries do not tend naturally towards any other goal but returning investments. This isn’t to say that deep and human things don’t also come out of the film industry semi-regularly... and there are even a few incredible cooks making really exceptional blooming onions at Outback Steakhouse!  But these outcomes are limited byproducts that occur at a drastically lower rate when the primary intention of industry endeavors is to make a profit. Authenticity, in its most restrained, limited, and reproducible form is somewhat profitable. But this authenticity will only be implemented up to the point it loses its profitability. It’s at that exact point that expression can become potentially dangerous. 

But it’s not just an issue of economics. I don’t think the answer is to begin making cheap illegitimate movies that use the same basic techniques as industry films. I don’t think the point of breaking away from the industry standard should be to attempt to imitate its on-screen aesthetic with smaller cameras. I don’t think the film aesthetic of money or the shot-caller/grunt-worker structure used to make movies can be thought of as separate from their economic motivation. But there’s no doubt that even without money on the line in any particular instant, we are of a culture that is deeply characterized by money (even reproduced by it) and we tend to imitate those particular business model characteristics even without the presence of profit itself.

When you made totally free movies for fun with your friends on weekends, did you assign yourselves positions as leaders, order-takers, creatives, and technicians? Do you believe that characteristics like ‘leader’ and ‘follower’ are innate or biological?

And what about the film’s content? Were you trying to make something that looked like it had production value? Like it cost money? Does that mean that the cinematic aesthetic itself is also the aesthetic of money?

Why might a film made for fun focus its energy on mimicking both the process and product of a consumer product—even without the presence of a budget? I would argue that this impulse isn’t just an economic imperative but also demonstrably a cultural habit. On the other side of breaking this habit is an endless space for experimentation, beautiful failure, and earnest truth. We’re dealing with a medium in which you can capture any image that exists (and infinitely more that don’t) and couple it with any sound you can imagine, and yet you want me to be afraid of the images and sounds that don’t appear to be lucrative products?

The biggest change at play on the set of A Great Lamp was an attempt to break the habit of taking orders from a leader. If we begin by rejecting “vision," one of the core philosophical tenants that justifies the existence of film bosses, what’s left? We found that to varying degrees, all of our 7 crew members had different intentions. If we were to loyally follow the template standardized by the film industry, 7 different intentions must first be crushed down into 1 vision before filming can begin. But if we dip outside of that template, if we embrace what is beautiful and exciting about contradiction and multiplicities and reject what is limiting and false about centralization, we find that not only is an honest and legible expression still possible, but more room is left open and available for experimentation. 

Who understands more about an image and a frame than the person holding the camera at that exact moment? Their boss? We didn’t tell the cinematographer what to do. We asked him what was up and he told us, unless he asked us, in which case we gave him ideas. If we treat every ‘position’ with this same approach, an oddly obvious thing happens: everybody with a particular skill set comes to the table to do that skill set, overlapping as co-conspirators, not as coworkers or superiors, getting shit done even when nobody commanded them to.

The obvious limitations that a lack of money and resources poses on moviemaking is discussed ad nauseam. I’m interested in the inverse of that conversation. What do we, the commoners without money or resources, have that film royalty doesn’t have? Are there methods and images that are informed by our unprofessional position that a hired hand and her boss can’t have access to? What if we leaned into these things instead of avoiding them in the hopes of appearing to have the money and resources we don’t have? 

When a millionaire director teams up with a billion-dollar film studio to make a movie about surviving poverty, they will necessarily depict Cinematic Crime and Cinematic Poverty. Despite being independent of lived reality, these cinematic versions of real life will develop their own canon and become ingrained as truth within film heritage.

Most of us have worked on the film sets that set decorate poor-person-living-rooms with empty vodka handles on shelves, televisions from the early 90s, and a landline on a side table next to a very full indoor ash tray.

This Cinematic poor person is the twisted result of professionals expressing a distant understanding of a world they aren’t in. Then, like a photocopy of a photocopy, more Cinematic poor person depictions are made referencing the depictions that came before.

A legitimate film set also becomes limited by its own legitimacy. It must continue to make legitimate moves in its process or else forfeit its status as a Real Movie. That cuts down hard on spontaneity, flexibility, risk-taking, and experimentation since it requires that everything captured on film is technically legal.

An illegitimate film set is light on its feet and can respond to the unexpected flow of events that occur during a film shoot much faster and more interestingly. Experimentation is not nearly as risky without the heavy monetary gamble attached. A level of non-legitimacy also makes using locations you don’t have permission to use much easier. And honestly, that was essential to filming A Great Lamp. 

About 2 months after we finished filming, 2 of the 7 original crew members of A Great Lamp broke off and made another entirely different feature film. This new film only required 2 people and $450, thus slimming down our on-set model even more drastically. The result is a movie with an aesthetic that is directly informed by the format of the process used to make it. Having a team of 2 people would’ve been a limitation if we were attempting to replicate a professional film technique but was not at all a limitation on our illegitimate set. It was instead an integral part of the ‘writing’ process, one of the collection of factors that informs what kind of thing we decide to make, a clear example of style informed by process, rather than operating despite process.

Don’t cling to the limitations imposed on you like they’re a comfort blanket. Quit your day job, crash on a couch, make a movie with your friends for no money. I'm telling you, don't grow up to be the old person that tells young people to be realistic and not make the movie/start the band/write the book. The only thing worse than quitting my job and being a poor ramen noodle eater who made a movie, would’ve been not quitting my job and not making a movie. 

 

Now that you've been convinced, check out my Practical Tips for stealing a movie.

 

 

 

I'm Max, a well adjusted criminal and sexual deviant living in Philadelphia. For years, I've been making movies with my friends without the help of real budgets, studios, or father figures, and somehow we still make better work than James Cameron. I write zines, I'm a comic artist, and a mother of two cats. I love my friends and hate the government. <3

The post We Stole a Movie appeared first on Slamdance.

Presenting the Top 92 Scripts of the 2019 Slamdance Screenplay Competition.

Feature

432 Park Avenue by Tal Almog

A Darker Shade of Night by Wayne Gibson

Animal by Milena Korolczuk

Art In Tandem by Elizabeth Blackmer

Away With My Heart by Hoyt Richards & Lawrence Nelson II

Black As The Ants by Andrea Lodovichetti

Cherries by Matt Sadowski & Amelia Wasserman

The Company We Keep by Suhashini Krishnan

The Fall by Tamra Teig, Michael Lipoma

Ghosts of the Grasslands by Connor B. Gaffey

Grip by Craig Cambria (aka Daniel Jay)

Harvest by Paul Dechant

The Haven by Cord McConnell

House Money by Don Waldo

Invisible by Eric Weber

Invisible Prisons by Hoyt Richards & Lawrence Nelson

It’s Christmas, Where in the Fucking Fuck is Daryl?! (Um…it’s a Working Title) by Sean Kohnen & Matthew Kohnen

Jimmy Stewart and the Yeti’s Hand by Bruce Scivally

Joppatown Hustle by Michael Mirabella

Jungle by Sophie Webb & Pete Carboni

King James by Collin Blair

Margo & Perry by Becca Roth

Officer X by Michael Joiner

Oh, Canada by Peter Killy

Oh Mists, My Mists by Guilherme Viegas

On Time by Xavier Burgin

Phrogger by Tim True & Csaba Mera

Punch Drunk by Brian Bourque

Shelter Me by Sara Caldwell & Jerry Vasilatos

Suburban Gothic by Sean Armstrong

Text M for Murder by Tony Moore

Tiny, Texas by David Lykes Keenan

The Visitor by Jay Nelson

The Zebra by Paul Justin Encinas

Horror

Cherry by Jordan Prosser

Dark Web by Ron Najor, Mark Eaton 

Fang & Claw by Troy Sloan

His Name is Jeremiah by D. J. McPherson

Home Bodies by RJ Daniel Hanna

Into the Trees by Matt O’Connor

London Chained by Ulvrik “Wolf” Kraft

Open House by Sean J.S. Jourdan & John Ingle

The Shepherd by Jorge Sermini

Sway by Jason M. Vaughn

Visiting Hours by Joe Bandelli & Matthew Wise

Pilot

Alienated by Bernadette Luckett

American Infamy by Evan Iwata

Animal People by Chris Gilman

Bitterroot by Maria Hinterkoerner & Kayne Gorney

Chasing Sunset by James L Head

Copper by Turhan Caylak

Devil’s Garden by Steve Wang

Dick by Danielle Nicolet

The Diamond by Juliet Bassanelli

Fermentation by Christine Garver

Fowl Road by Matthew Flynn

Halcyon Falls by Jeff Bower

Hesperium by Martin Garner

Hominine (The Tipping Point) by Heather Farlinger

Iconic by Brianna Janes

The Paisley Witch Trial by J. A. Campanelli 

Parts by Craig Page

Proxy by Andrew Justice

Raven’s Cove by Natalie Zimmerman

Reflections by Cynthia Wright

The Restart by Martina Muhoberac

Somnophilia by Marc Edelstein

State Control by Dylan McDonough

Survival of the Fittest by Jaclyn Parker

Ted and his Daddy by Zeke Smith

Temp by Nikko Kimzin

Tramp Stamp by K. Busatto

The Villain’s Sidekick by Stephen Brophy

Women’s Work by Kevin Schwartz

Short

1, 2, 3, All Eyes On Me by Emil Gallardo

8 Minutes 20 Seconds by Katrina Aronovsky

A Beautiful Day by J. Logan Alexander

Chasing Divinity by Jed Tamarkin

Dig Deeper by Girault Seger

Dragonfly by Julia Morizawa

Dunked by John Bickerstaff

Give Love A Shot by Al Finocchio

Hawk Bells by Kristian Mercado

How to Like Your Babysitter by Billy Rex McAfee

Inversion by Aristides G. Kouvaras

Lonesome Demon Killing Blues by Sean Kelly

Miranda Of Mind by Bianca Ahonor

Miss A. by Theo Georgescu

Otros by Brandon Hugo Arroyo

Prairie Ronde by Connor Burke

Revolver by Beanie Barnes

Youth In A Casket by Hannah Aslesen

Semifinalists will be announced here on Monday, September 23rd at 10AM PST.

The post Screenplay Competition Quarterfinalists appeared first on Slamdance.

Filmmakers Kelly Sears and Sam Gurry are 2019 Slamdance alumni who create innovative and powerful films by repurposing and reframing found imagery and objects. Kelly's film Applied Pressure, features sequential images sourced from dozens of massage books activated to reflect on recent public conversation surrounding bodies, massage, and assault. Sam's animated documentary, Winners Bitch, was inspired by a found collection of photos and documents belonging to Virginia Hampton, a real life doyenne of the dog competition world, and ruminates on the many sacrifices it can take to be a woman of distinction. We invited them to chat about about their work and the ways they create new meaning in the materials they find around them.

 

Kelly Sears:  It's great to watch all your work together!  I love getting a sense that questions or approaches become more pronounced through watching multiple works.  Here are some thoughts and musings and let's use this as a first step to see where our conversation goes.  We can make space for questions to questions and responses to responses.

Sam Gurry: Thanks for watching my films! Likewise, it was lovely getting to be so engrossed in your world, Kelly. It’s interesting watching all of your pieces together and feeling certain manifestations throughout. I feel like I know you better now somehow. 

KS: We were asked to chat because we both had films in the 2019 Slamdance Film Festival created by reworking pre-existing imagery and material.  The term archival was used in this initial email from Slamdance and we both wanted to move away or loosen the use of that term.  Tell me more about these feelings in your practice.

SG: People have a lot of preconceived notions about archival film. I don't have brazen reticence towards the term but I find that it can be limiting. Context is important but I'm interested in a more expanded conversation and vantage. Archives that I encounter are often created through happenstance or an outside labeling. Right now, I'm less interested in that word. I think you are too!

I’d love to hear your feelings of trepidation towards the use of the word “archive”. What is it about the term that caused you hesitance?

KS:  Archives can mean so many things, ranging from an institution where you wear white gloves to online collections of documents and ephemera to more speculative organizations to institutes concerned with preservation.  Some of the imagery I’ve worked with, such as presidential newsreels, exercise textbooks, instructional survival guides, high school yearbooks, military films, massage books, first aid handbooks come from such varied places, often more informal than archival.

Terms like source material or appropriation feel a little more comfortable to me.  In my work, I turn away from something official and epistemological and toward something more fictive or fantastic. I approach imagery and animation through gestures of activation, response, intervention, and experimentation – terms I don’t necessarily think of when I considering larger archive conduct.  I identify more with Guy Debord’s ideas of détournement and collaging imagery against the initial intention embedded in the image and a psychogeographic approach to what kind of imagery finds its way to me

Where do you find the material for your project?  How does it find you?

SG: I don’t normally seek out specific objects, I wait for them to find me. I love going through garage sales, thrift stores, tantalizing dumpsters, and whatever errant pile of stuff comes my way. I was just in Nebraska for a month and visited every thrift store that I could multiple times, necessitating creative packing for the flight back. Currently, I’m working with some items I’ve rediscovered from my childhood that I’m actively seeking more copies of. 

KS: This sounds like it could be a more personal work than some of your others.  Is this piece inspired more so by the images from childhood or perhaps you may be in a space to make work closer to home?

SG: It’s hard to answer this question without revealing the materials just yet, which is something I’m not ready to do! It is, in many ways, a more personal piece as the inspirational source items come from my own experience. They are ideals of girlhood and a certain kind of femininity in many ways, a kind that I didn’t necessarily feel a part of or that I had access too. I’m still working out how to tie in my own experience, if at all, into the film. You’ll just have to wait.

Do the found images that you embrace ever have personal relevance or significance to you?

KS: My relationship to histories in my work has gotten more intimate in the past few years.  I’ve always been attracted to interrogating American institutions and am more conscious of my personal connection and position to those structures and have been experimenting with building visual and metaphorical bridges between lived experiences and larger political incidents.

I’d love to hear how you approach the wide array of material such as photographs, breed classification guides, hard discs, email conversations, trading cards, broadcast footage, discarded family albums and even previously chewed gum.  How do you find your way “in” to this material?

SG: I’ll sit with the materials for a while. I often have the objects that I’ll be working with for months or years before I concretely consider using them for a film. Why is it that I’m keeping it around? I’ll run into the problem of, this archive is already inherently interesting, what am I bringing to it? What is the story that it’s trying to tell?  I write a lot, I keep both a typed and physical journal as well as countless notes in my phone. Free writing reveals a lot of textured feelings that I’ve having towards something, or someone. It’s helpful for when I can’t articulate a structured, narrative thought about whatever concept that I’m working toward.

There’s tension between humanity and technology in several of your films. Is this a conscious decision? In After Fall (2018) we see visions of the present, and possible future, through a motif of older technology. How do you feel about the presence of technology in our lives?

KS: The technology, and most often sound technology, is a means of broadcasting forms of ideological systems in my work – imperialism, expansionism, institutional power structures, and surveillance and patrolling procedures.  I think about these transmissions having a mesmerizing and conditioning effect on the bodies with the consequences recognized much later.  Noise plays a role here – either sonic or psychic, through a hypnotic tone, a certain frequency, or a form of interference disrupting something authorized.  The presence of technology in our lives is hard to cohesively reflect on because often it’s unseen yet ubiquitous, and can produce visible, horrific results. 

After Fall, 2018 from Kelly Sears on Vimeo.

SG: The body is a through line throughout several of your films. The body and its transitions, its movement. The way that sensibilities and phenomena can be displayed through our physical realities. Do you bring these notions to the images or do you seek out images that can specifically act as a conduit?

KS: The body is ultimately a receptor of these transmissions.  It may be possessed by an unknown force, retreating from the physical, consumed by the dream world, or levitating due to a siren song. I hope to design the movement of these bodies to reflect a specific political or social climate surrounding these figures that they are responding to. 

Are films likes Winners Bitch, jim, gutterball, and reddish brown bluish green portraits or are they something else?  Do you think about the relationship you are building with the subjects of these films as you are working with images and data from and about them?

SG: I consider some of those films portraits but portraits of exactly what is tricky. They are as much about me as they are about the subject they are centering in on. Those pieces are all based on found objects. I’m making films based on one side of a telephone call, eye contact with a stranger before they exit the subway.

Respect is important. I’m using detritus, vestiges of self that somebody chose to discard. I don’t want to inflict constructs onto these real people that make me pause. I trust my stomach to tell me if something isn’t settling right. I took a lot out of Winners Bitch that actors had improved because it felt too distorted from Virginia’s reality to include. Part of that film’s intent is to explore notions of subjectivity, but there was a point that strayed to the point of absurdity and, potentially, disrespect.

KS: I’d like to hear more about how these portraits are about you as well.  In what ways do you see yourselves in the animating and production of these works?

SG: I say these are portraits of me as well as they are encapsulation of myself in that moment of actively working on them. Whatever editing, sound, or visual choices I made are reflective of where I was in that particular moment in time. What did I choose to highlight? Hide? Mask? All those are shades of me in that moment.

KS: What happens to these images with embedded histories as you’re working with them?

SG: Hopefully they feel transformed.

reddish brown and blueish green from Sam Gurry on Vimeo.

KS:  You often mix media in your work.  How does this shape your stories?

SG: We are large, we contain multitudes. Tactility and texture are really important to me. Something like warmth, hard to replicate. 

KS:  I’m curious about how many modes of storytelling are needed because one through line doesn’t always cut it.  I’d love to hear about how these various textures can get at the complexity of the subjects of your films.

SG: I’m looking very closely at things. I’m seeking out the textural complexity of whatever subject I’m exploring. How does they feel? Up close, and under their skin?

Ephemerality manifesting as permanence was something I kept thinking about watching your films, especially A Tone Halfway Between Lightness and Darkness or Once It Started It Could Not End Otherwise.  Even when it doesn’t explicitly calcify, I find myself still considering impermanence. Tropical Depression has this deep sense of foreboding that has me waiting for a doom that never reveals itself. Can you speak to these sensory experiences and your relationship to ephemerality?

KS: What if it was ephemerality dislodging permanence?  While I anchor many pieces on the effects of various institutions on the body, I often use abstract textures, visual noise, and distortion to destabilize how we read the imagery.  Either way, I am interested in slippage between the official and the fantastic, the occult, the psychic, and the liminal.  There is some intentional ambiguity in the aesthetic architecture for each person to bring their own experiences of distress or anxiety to their viewing experience.

SG: Through some of the robust subject matter that you confront, you inject a sense of the humor. Once It Started It Could Not End Otherwise has one of my favorite lines, “school spirit plummeted. the mascot went missing and was never returned”. This deadpan, sardonic humor really underscores the perceived hopelessness of a situation. Can you speak to your use of humor in your work?

KS: The continual consequence of institutional power and abuse right now is overwhelming.  Sometimes I need some temporary relief and build in humorous phrases or moments of detour.  When Walter Benjamin speaks of Brecht’s epic theater, he says revolt has a better chance when “one is shaken by laughter than when one’s mind is shaken and upset.”  I think both senses of being shaken are all around.  Revolt is coming.  We have a lot of work to do. I hope we can laugh at times along the way.

SG: What is doom to you?

KS: I used to identify as someone who made dystopic films and thought about them as a way to come to terms with my anxieties.  Now I want to think about how to navigate more effectively through them.  I hope we can find a way through the doom.  I think it often shows up in my work as a dark frequency or catastrophic sound design.  It’s a very timely question.  What is doom to you, Sam?

SG: I’m not sure. I’ve seen shades of it. I hope to never experience more than its shadow.

Kelly Sears is an experimental animator that reframes American archetypes and institutions to reimagine our own social legacies and futures.   She collages an extensive range of source material such as presidential newsreels, exercise textbooks, survival guides, high school yearbooks, first aid handbooks, and other official and instructional imagery. Through combining animated photographic and cinematic documents with speculative storytelling, each of her films contains recognizable cultural narratives that use various ideas of noise to disrupt identifiable histories to engage other personal and political experiences. Her films have screened at Sundance, Slamdance, SXSW, AFI, MoMA, The Hammer Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Art Houston, and Union Docs. Sears has had solo programs of her work at the Pacific Film Archives, Anthology Film Archives, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Portland Art Museum, and the San Francisco Cinematheque. Sears is an Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies and Moving Image Arts at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where she teaches advanced filmmaking, animation, experimental documentary, and media archaeology.

Sam Gurry is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and curator. Their films have been in the official selection at the Toronto International Film Festival, SXSW, Slamdance, Ann Arbor, and the Ottawa International Animation Festival among others. Sam received an MFA from CalArts in Experimental Animation. They live in Hollywood, California but don’t hold it against them. Formerly an antiques appraiser, Sam’s practice explores the ephemeral, unintended archives, and personal histories. They perform as one half of expanded cinema duo Saint Victoria’s Incorruptible Body with Melissa Ferrari, providing guitar and vocals. Sam is currently a professor at Cal State Los Angeles.

The post Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Reframe: Kelly Sears & Sam Gurry in Conversation appeared first on Slamdance.

This October, Slamdance brings its 5th annual DIG (Digital, Interactive & Gaming) showcase to Los Angeles featuring works by emerging visual artists and indie game developers from around the world. DIG will be open to the public October 24-25, 2019 at the Los Angeles Art District’s new immersive art park Wisdome, adding to the city’s rich offerings of interactive art experiences.

DIG 2019 features a diverse lineup that explores the breadth of possibilities of new technologies and ways they can be used for creative expression. Projection pieces IMMERSIVE and tx-reverse 360° envelop the viewer from above and take advantage of Wisdome’s unique domed architecture. Cinematic VR documentaries How to Tell a True Immigrant Story and Children Do Not Play War bring Slamdance’s strong background in supporting cutting-edge filmmaking into new frontiers of film technology. An AI-generated new album, Chain Tripping, from LA based electro pop duo YACHT, and a reinterpretation of Hitchcock classic Vertigo are among projects exploring the creative possibilities of artificial intelligence. The diverse program also features interactive experimental dance, indie games, social AR filters, and a brain-wave generated musical performance.

 

Slamdance will also be previewing a selection of DIG works at Mobile World Congress in collaboration with 4YFN on October 23 and 24. This collaboration with 4YFN is a new step for Slamdance in connecting artistic creativity with established and emerging leaders in the business and tech community.

"Slamdance is about raising awareness and delivering opportunities for our artists. Wisdome is one of the best venues in the world for an audience to see an interactive showcase.” says DIG co-curator Dekker Dreyer. “Additionally, through 4YFN, our artists will be exposed to business leaders in the tech sector, opening up possibilities for collaboration and support. At DIG 2019 we’re doing more than ever to put emerging creators front and center."

DIG, hosted by Wisdome (Address: 1147 Palmetto Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013) is open October 24th and 25th, 2019. Tickets available at https://slamdancedig2019.eventbrite.com/

2019 DIG Program Lineup 

 

Art in Motion by Hayk Matevosyan

6 classic painted masterpieces are recreated using real actors, set design, lighting, costumes and slow motion cameras.

 

Beam by Courtney Jines

Beam is a meditative interactive fiction adventure in which players are a beam of light entering Earth's atmosphere.

 

Bluster Blunder by Justin Ankenbauer, Clay Brooks, David Fraile 

Bluster Blunder is an absurdist racing game in which players blow into modified Nintendo Entertainment System cartridges to advance their character. 

 

Brick, the Yes-Android by Jonsey Jones

Brick, the Yes-Android is a computer program that leads a performer through a series of short-form improv games consisting of interactions between Brick, the performer, and the audience. Brick blends technology with improvisation and narrative to examine the relationship between humans and artificial intelligence.

 

Chain Tripping by YACHT

"Chain Tripping" is an album by the band YACHT that was created using a range of different machine learning techniques in both its musical and lyrical composition, employing latent space interpolation, character-recurrent neural networks, and neural audio generation in combination with a DIY cut-up writing method to create very human music. 

 

Children Do Not Play War by Fabiano Mixo

A cinematic Virtual Reality tale of the war in Uganda told through the eyes of a young girl.

 

Desert Mothers by Aaron Oldenburg

A meditative, multiplayer networked experience in which each player’s personal environment, composed of individualized weather and hallucinations, responds emotionally to the player’s actions. The constraints within which the players interact are discovered during play, and revolve around the body, simulated breath, drawing in the air, and out-of-body exploration of flora, fauna, and abandoned human habitations. 

 

Glitchy Blinks by David Pripas

A social AR filter. Is this even real? Am I real?

 

How to Tell a True Immigrant Story by Aggie Ebrahimi Bazaz

How to Tell a True Immigrant Story is a poetic and participatory metanarrative that weaves together the experiences of members of the Latinx immigrant community in Saratoga Springs, NY as they respond to increased ICE activity and anti-immigrant sentiment after the 2016 presidential election.

 

I love you so much, SQUEEZE ME TO DEATH by Koryn Ann Wicks

I love you so much, SQUEEZE ME TO DEATH is an immersive dance performance with interactive video and sound installations, exploring the ways we lose ourselves loving others. Audiences collaborate with dancers and actors to experience contemporary choreography up-close; move with dancers; and become participants in the performance.

 

Identity by Grayson Sanders

A social AR  filter that represents the ever-changing way in which we identify with ourselves and the world.

 

Imagine Lifetimes by Frycandle (Selected by Game Jolt)

Imagine Lifetimes is a game about choice. Shape your path through a series of life-changing decisions as you choose your way to the end.

IMMERSIVE by ARCAAN Collective

IMMERSIVE plays with the Op art concept and minimalism to produce illusions and illimited perspective. Working with projection of 3D shapes and with stroboscopic effects, this installation gives a new feeling of time and a sensation to be immersed into multiple mesmerized forms. The soundtrack is inspired by electronic melody derived from pure sinus and digital noises recreating a real electro-acoustic noisist orchestra.

 

Nightmare Temptation Academy by Lena NW Costcodreamgurl

Nightmare Temptation Academy is a dating-simulation/choose your own adventure/roleplaying game that is also a rap musical set in an alternate universe high school at the end of the world. Visual tropes from anime, videogames and early 2000’s digital culture are referenced and remixed to evoke nostalgia and allegorize the uniquely Millennial adolescent experience of apathy, desensitization, and confusion caused by first-generation internet addiction and media oversaturation.

 

Primary Assembly by Jason Snell

A musical performance by telepathy. The artist’s alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and gamma waves are processed and output as MIDI to control and play electronic music instruments.

 

Pug Pub by Haiwei Hou, DOOMWOOD Digital Media

A game in which players are a pug running their own pub. 

 

Sloppy Forgeries by Jonah Warren

A minimalist take on “competitive painting,” where the goal of the game is to quickly and accurately recreate famous artworks from history. Sloppy Forgeries playfully engages with issues of artistic merit, creation, authenticity, ownership, and skill. 

 

The Delay by Dalena Tran

"The Delay" is a five-part interactive webcomic about the lives of four characters who each are confronted with their relationship to time, identity, and media with abstracted layers of spatial, auditory, and visual reality.

 

tx-reverse 360° by Martin Reinhart, Virgil Widrich

What happens in a cinema when you film it at a resolution of 10K with a 360° camera and then reverse the spatial and temporal axes? In a way never before shown, "tx-reverse 360°" shows the collision of reality and cinema and draws its viewers into a vortex in which the familiar order of space and time is suspended.

 

Unceded Territories by Paisley Smith and Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun

In a VR world made entirely out of artist Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun’s bold, surrealist style, the toxic realities of forest fires, poisoned waters, dead fish, spilled oil are made palatable. The VR participant is forced to question their own role in the real world and recognize the need for change.

 

Vertigo A.I.  by Chris Peters

An artificial intelligence watched Hitchcock’s Vertigo 20 times in a row and then made its own disturbing movie. 

 

What The Camera Sees by Gel Pen Collective, Stephanie Andrews

Step into the camera’s view and see the tale it spins about you. "What the Camera Sees" is an exploration of computer vision, video editing, and surveillance technology, presenting an AI filled with stories of spies, criminals, and secret lives. This playfully creepy experience imagines a not-too-distant future where your expected value and risk to society are constantly calculated by systems that are impossible to question or correct.

 

Zoe by Graeme Hawkins

ZOE is a shoot 'em up inspired by the drawn-on-film animations of Norman McLaren. Play as the titular hero and fight back against the abstract doodles of the animator and their interfering paint brush.

 

The post Slamdance DIG Showcase Merges Art, Technology and Immersive Experience at DTLA’s Wisdome appeared first on Slamdance.

 

Grand Prize & 1st Place Feature

The Fall by Michael Lipoma & Tamra Teig

East Berlin 1989 - A single mother is forced to become a spy to save her son when he’s framed for murder, and her act of revenge, woven into historic events, leads to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

"Our producing partner's uncle was accused of being a KGB agent, and died under suspicious circumstances when he tried to extricate himself to protect his family. We used that as the inspiration and chose another time in history that was filled with espionage--the Cold War world behind the Berlin Wall. As we researched the idea of a mother who's forced to become a spy to save her son, we discovered the real cause of the fall of the Berlin Wall--a communication error. We wove real stories of East Berliners' struggles to free themselves from their oppressive regime into historic events and imagined how these events could have unfolded, through the eyes of single mother trying to keep her children safe behind the Iron Curtain."

2nd Place Feature

Margo & Perry by Becca Roth

When an aimless twenty-something stumbles upon a young girl who she believes to be the daughter she gave up for adoption as a teen, she becomes the girl’s babysitter, gaining the adoptive mother’s trust and concealing her own identity.

"I started this script in my 20s, when I was grappling with questions of identity and self worth. I was working to grow out of a mindset that relied heavily on internalizing my interpretations of others’ impressions on me in order to inform my own identity and actions. The characters in this film are all working to grow out of some limiting sense of who they are and how others perceive them. And as I started writing this, I became very interested in the idea of choice and autonomy. Most of the characters in this film, Margo especially, have had their choice and sense of autonomy taken from them. And through the journey of this story, they work to reclaim that sense of agency. I also sort of naturally created a protagonist who happens to be queer, and nobody in the film makes a big deal of it, which I love."

3rd Place Feature

Cherries by Matthew Sadowski & Amelia Wasserman

When her rambunctious sister is kidnapped by a pair of dirty cops, a sheltered and cynical teenager gets caught up in a dangerous misadventure with a pretty boy delinquent who got them into this mess to begin with.

"I have two kids and I wanted to make the kind of film that I want my daughter to relate to when she becomes a teenager. And one for my son to watch and understand that men come in all shapes and sizes. We are trying to subvert the stereotypes of gender and genre. Then, my wife and I went through crisis, came out as addicts and through deep therapy realized how much of our adult selves is based on the trauma and experiences we had as teenagers. This is a love letter and warning shot to our teenage selves." —Matthew Sadowski

 

1st Place Horror/Thriller

Cherry by Jordan Prosser

On the night she attempts to lose her virginity, 17-year-old Ettie Apple is visited by seven teenage ghosts, begging her to find their killer and bring them to justice. Ettie abandons her plans for a normal life and begins investigating the string of murders and disappearances that have rocked her quiet country town, and drove her police sergeant father to a nervous breakdown.

"Cherry fits into the sub-genre of small-town, supernatural mysteries kickstarted in the Amblin era of the 80s, and is enjoying a resurgence today in shows like Stranger Things. In many ways, Cherry's a perfect pastiche of all my favourite entertainment and influences growing up – John Hughes films about teenage identity, adventure movies like E.T., plus the female-led adventures of shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer – but all in the context of the modern world, where the "monsters" we seem to be most afraid of are the seemingly ordinary men living next door to us."

2nd Place Horror/Thriller

Into the Trees by Matt O'Connor

An ex-FBI agent, dealing with loss, is compelled to join the search for a missing young girl and discovers a dark, possibly supernatural conspiracy. 

"Into the Trees is rooted in the trauma my wife and I experienced during the late-term pregnancy loss of our son. After reading about real-life missing persons cases, it got me thinking that one of the difficulties with mourning is the sudden void where a person should have been; there is no closure. One of the things I wanted to show with this story, is that loss is not something you have to hide and let fester inside; this is me finally sharing mine, too. "

3rd Place Horror/Thriller

They Live on Skid Row by R. J. Daniel Hanna

As a zombie outbreak spreads unnoticed through L.A.'s homeless, teen runaway Jayni must band together with Skid Row's street-dwellers to rescue her young brother and somehow survive the night.

"In the past few years, we’ve seen the homeless population grow more and more in LA. Tents are lining streets that were previously empty. Highway on-ramps have been converted to impromptu residential streets. It is a problem spreading right under our nose, and yet it feels as if it is happening in a parallel world. How can we be so disconnected from these people in our own backyard?"

1st Place TV Pilot

Bitterroot by Kayne Gorney & Maria Hinterkoerner

A washed-up former private eye is hired to investigate the murder of a handsome park ranger in the eerie town of Bitterroot.

After a sci-fi and a road movie feature, we talked about a follow up TV project. When we brainstormed new genres to explore, we were drawn to the realm of the mysterious. We watched other shows and movies (Twin Peaks, Fargo, In the Heat of the Night, Wind River) and read up on mystery and crime and found ourselves really inspired by the genre’s richness in tone and setting. We then decided to frame our story against a historical backdrop and found that the late 70’s fit our theme with their sense of overall uncertainty and skepticism. We used the cultural heartbeat of the hour - the TV shows, the music, the pop style - and the landscape of rural Montana to create the storyworld of Bitterroot.

2nd Place TV Pilot

American Infamy by Evan Iwata

In 1940s Portland, a rebellious Japanese-American teenager must step up to help his family withstand the wave of persecution that arises after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

"American Infamy was inspired by my family’s experience with Japanese internment during World War II. Many elements of the script are based on true stories I learned by interviewing relatives who experienced these events firsthand. I wrote this script to celebrate their heroism and perseverance in the face of great adversity, and also to shine a light on this dark chapter in our country’s history. Now more than ever, it is vitally important for us to remember the mistakes of the past to ensure they are never repeated."

3rd Place TV Pilot

Devil's Garden by Steve Wang

An inmate firefighter battles wildfires across California, but his most dangerous enemy may be his own crew.

"I read an article about inmate firefighters and thought, 'How cool is that!'"

1st Place Short

Dig Deeper by Girault Seger

A life-long grave digger seeking greater validation from his work acquires an unexpected job.

"I began writing a story about a gravedigger (Gerry) struggling with self-worth, and over the course of a couple drafts I found characters I really loved. As I developed the character of Gerry I stumbled across a CBS Sunday Morning profile from a few years ago about a passionate gravedigger thats devoted his life to what he considers his god-given talent. I was honestly shocked to discover someone so similar to this character I'd had in my head. His pride in the craftsmanship of the job and the choice to dig graves by hand inspired the final form that this character took.

Self-worth and the work people choose to do to in this life are often wrapped up in each other. I was drawn to write about a gravedigger; blue collar work surrounded by deep, emotional situations. I wanted to dig into the emotional life of that person in the background or more often unseen. What work are they doing to feel pride in what they do? Through methods like meditation, notes-to-self, people put effort into maintaining their sense of vitality. That struggle is the universal theme that I followed from the beginning. And of course from there it twisted its way into the absurd dark comedy I am happy to present today."

 

2nd Place Short

Dunked by John Bickerstaff

A closeted teen preparing for his full-immersion baptism makes friends with a lifeguard, and realizes his resistance might be about more than his fear of water - and of his overbearing, religious mother.

"I like to say that Dunked isn’t a true story but that there’s a lot of truth in it. I’m gay, I was raised homeschooled and conservative, and I did get “dunked” (baptized by full immersion) when I was 16. I didn’t realize I was gay till several years later, but when I was writing about that time period I realized the two subjects went together quite well and made for a really good crisis for the character. As strange as it sounds, there is now such a thing as a "traditional" coming out. I didn’t have that, and it’s really important to me to portray similar diverse experiences of queer people in my work. The coming out experience represented in media is so homogenous, and I hope this will speak to people who feel like they haven’t seen themselves before."

 

3rd Place Short

Hawk Bells by Kristian Mercado Figueroa

A story told via the perspective of a Taino Indigenous mother and daughter during Puerto Rico's colonization. We experience their day to day lives and the violent shift as we explore the practice of slavery and usage of Hawk Bells during that time period.

"I wanted to define the Latinx narrative from a perspective of origin point. Puerto Ricans have a lot of lost history, which needs to be reclaimed and explored. I felt it was vital to tell the story of our very inception since it's rarely discussed or explored. The enslavement practices of the colonized using Hawk Bells was an obscure oddity that I felt could be explored."

The post The 2019 Award-winning Screenwriters appeared first on Slamdance.

The post Test appeared first on Slamdance.