Categories
Issues and Actions

Is Indie Film The New Wal-Mart?

Beanie Barnes has a MUST READ post up on Salon “America’s Next Wal-Mart: The Indie Film Industry“. Although Beanie primarily focuses on over-supply/grand abundance as the primary problem, the link-filled post captures many of the challenges we all now face — especially sustainability on a personal level. And the article is not just

Categories
Truly Free Film

Who Will Sell Your Film Internationally?

I would like to go to the site of one of the many organizations dedicated to supporting filmmakers and easily find links to a list of foreign sales agents.

For that matter, I would like to be able to find such links to US Distributors, Worldwide Distributors, Distribution Case Studies, Funders, Agents, Crew, Platforms, Legal Documents, Production Forms, Tech & Equipment Recommendations, Recommended Best Practices, Expert Opinions, Ideas & Inspiration, Recommended Reading — and that’s just off the top of my head.  You know, I would like it to be clear that that these organizations were driven to help filmmakers, and not just “furthering their brand”.

Categories
Truly Free Film

Recommended Reading: Mynette Louie’s “Innovate Or Die”

It took me a week but I finally caught up with Mynette Louie’s IFP Blog Post “Innovate Or Die“.  She does an excellent job at capturing the Indie Producer’s life at this point in our cultural era.  More importantly, she makes a fantastic and necessary plea to us all:

“let’s put our  heads together and figure out how to sustain not only ourselves, but ultimately, the art that we love so dearly, and the diversity of artistic voices that make it. There is a better way, and we’ve got to find it soon.”

Read the whole post here.

Categories
Bowl Of Noses

Zoom & Royksopp

One of our favorite picture books (100% no words) is Zoom by Istavan Banyai.  Or rather: one of our favorite picture book SERIES is the Zoom collection.  It’s also one of our favorite devices: you look at an image and then the artist either “zooms in” closer for a more specific detail, or the artist does a “dolly back” to show you the context of what you are looking at.  The books are Recommended Reading.

The Bowl recognizes though that this may be hard to see in your mind.  Luckily the band Royksopp has a video that captures this technique darn well, and suitably the song has no words either.

Categories
Bowl Of Noses

Recommended Reading: This Guy Can Draw!

David Weisner is one of the top children book writers EVER!  Or should I say “draw-er”.  His books have very few words, but his imagination soars.  They often start quite simply, but then they take you to a completely other place.  You can be very young when you first read them, but even once you get all tall and grey, they will keep you young when you read them.

Flotsam is my current fave, as it features the picture-within-a-picture-within-a-picture principal that I am a 100% sucker for.  That said Sector 7 is pretty rocking too, what with it’s tale of the clouds total revolution over the bland regime.  And it’s gonna make a heck of a movie too (cuz I’m making it!  — that is, with quite a bit of help from my friends…)

Categories
Bowl Of Noses

Recommended Reading



We gave the cousins all eight volumes for the holidays and were told they were the same smash hit there as in our house. Everyone we have ever mentioned this to, has come back and thanked us. Osamu Tezuka created ASTROBOY and for that he will forever be thanked in our house (where would robot culture be without Astroboy?!!).

Tezuka’s masterwork is The Adventures Of Buddha. Sure, it gets a bit racy at times, and it definitely gets silly. Some adults may quibble at the liberties taken, but the story and the drawings are fantastic. But the whole reading experience and sense of accomplishment one has on completing the eight volumes is unmatched. Suffice it to note that we finished all eight in between Harry Potter 2 and 3.