Top Ten Movies (give or take)

Today, a couple of my students asked to post my top ten movie list. While I imagine they wanted the list all at once for a quick peruse, I've decided to post a separate entry for each (not too long, don't worry). And just to make matters worse, I'm even going to throw in a couple that aren't even in the top ten (but certainly near the top). I keep a list, with ratings from 0 to 5 stars, of all the movies I've seen (a couple thousand) , and less than a 100 have received 5 stars. While I'm not going to write about all of these (you're welcome), I am going to start with the most recent film I've seen that I gave 5 stars to:

Scenes from a Marriage, 1974, written and directed by Ingmar Bergman

Ingmar Bergman, hands down, is the greatest observer and communicator of human emotion that cinema has ever seen. And Scenes is certainly one of his best and most painful to watch. The theatrical release was an edited version of a six part series made for television. The film traces the marriage, divorce, post-divorce relationship, and eventual affair of Johan and Marianne. The opening scene, of Johan and Marianne being interviewed by a journalist, sets the table beautifully, as a shy Marianne keeps subtly elbowing Johan every time he says something that she finds embarrassing. I think the most amazing thing is that it's never clear whether the film is a condemnation or a tribute to marriage. The marriage fails and ends in divorce, yet on another level the marriage succeeds, surviving everything, including divorce.

The Long Tail

The Long Tail

I've justed finished reading Chris Anderson's book The Long Tail. The concept of The Long Tail has become pretty popular lately. If you aren't familiar with it, the basic idea is that the internet age has reduced the popularity of the hit and increased the popularity of all the niche products that appeal to a smaller group who know can access that niche more easily. One of the interesting things that Anderson discusses in his book is the increase of producers and creators who are making products primarily for the niche end of the distribution curve. These niche products may vary in quality, so creating filter and recommendation systems for people to sort through the vast choices becomes of utmost importance. While providers like Netflix, Amazon, and iTunes may have created good filter/recommendation services, they have the advantage of offering professionally produced content for the most part. In the world of visual media, sites like iFilm and YouTube seem not to have developed such systems, perhaps because they don't seem to have recommendation systems that make recommendations on the ratings you provide (or if they do, they're not immediately obvious based on my browsing of these sites).

Anderson's book is also especially interesting in terms of what the decline of the hit and the rise of the niche means to our shared culture (or lack there of). He posits a world where we inhabit many small groups based on interest, some of which overlap and some of which do not. In essence, though everyone no longer has the same set of basic cultural touchstones, we most likely share niche interest with almost everyone...

This isn't meant to be a full review, but rather an enthusiastic plug. I highly recommend the book for anyone interested in technology, culture, and the economy in general and anyone who considers themselves part of the visual content industry in particular. Check out the blog at the above address as well.

Bruce Baillie

Bruce Baillie

If you are a fan of the experimental filmmaker Bruce Baillie, you might be interested in this update on his website. He is looking for funding to transfer his films to DVD. His film "To Parsifal" is one of my all-time favorites. I hope to find out more information on the current status of the project. I'll post an update when I know more.

CinemaTech: More from Building Blocks: Short-form vs Long-form, Video Advertising, Google, Yahoo, and YouTube

CinemaTech: More from Building Blocks: Short-form vs Long-form, Video Advertising, Google, Yahoo, and YouTube

More from Scott Kirsner on the Digital Hollywood conference.

Controlling Video Content--Cinematech

Controlling video content

Scott Kirsner reports from the "Building Blocks" conference put on by Digital Hollywood about the challenges of controlling on-line content and about Atom's attempts to find more high quality short films.

UFVA Conference

I just returned from the University Film and Video Association Conference in Orange, CA (hosted at the brand new film studio facilities at Chapman University). Though the conference is not the big sort of conference reported on by the press, there were a lot of interesting events during the 5-day event.



Wednesday morning there was a keynote panel featuring Carl Franklin, Penelope Spheeris, Donald Petrie, David Ward, and Jonathon King. They discussed the state of the industry and film education. They had some pretty interesting things to say--here are a couple of quotes:

"It's like trying to get on a sinking ship" --Penelope Spheeris on film students trying to get into the industry.

Similarly, David Ward stated, "There barely is an industry."

There really was a feeling that the industry as we know it, even among insiders, was falling apart, which strengthens my belief that new visual content providers will find themselves working on their own in a variety of media and on a variety of different types of projects.

The panel also noted the need for a broader education saying among other things that students don't come into the industry or film school with enough life experience, that a narrow focus breeds technicians rather than creators, and that history and an appreciation of the past is valuable.

That evening the American Society of Cinematographers sponsored a panel including Laszlo Kovacs, Daryn Okada, Donald M. Morgan, and Stephen Lighthill.

I attended a number of panels and workshops, and found myself drawn to cinematography oriented workshops, despite not being a cinematographer myself. Stephen Burum presented a lighting workshop and discussed some challenges in film education. As expected he defended the use of film and expects it to be around for a while. I also attended a demonstration of Kodak's Look Management system, which is a great visualization tool for shooters of film.

I presented on scene structure in one panel, discussed Filmmaking MFAs on another, and screened my short film along with my friend, colleague, and DP on the film, Mike Gunter.

On a last personal note, Mike and I went to the Getty Center while we were there. It's an amazing museum and I recommend that anyone planning on going to the L.A. area check it out.