indieWIRE BLOGS > Park City

To find out more about what is happening this year at Sundance, don't forget to check out indiewire's Park City blog for the latest on the festival.

Query Letters I Love

Thanks to Metafilter for the pointer to the blog Query Letters I Love. If you think that there are a lot of bad movies out there, wait until you read some of the actual query letters for films that haven't been made. Read and please, I beg of you, learn.

Badmovies.org

Badmovies.org lists, well, bad movies. If "A" movies aren't your thing and you tend toward films released on VHS tapes, this is the place for you.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

The essential source for information about films is The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Back in the old days it was smaller and you downloaded the content and could run it on your own computer. Now it's online, comprehensive and I don't even think about looking up films and filmmakers on it. It's like Google for films.

2005 Sundance Film Festival Lineup

The lineup has just been announced for the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. It would be cool to go and see the films that can be part of the next generation of filmmakers and trends.

Noir Genius Exam

The Village Voice has the Noir Genius Exam by Toni Schlesinger which is a great way to test your knowledge of film noir. You can even enter the contest which has a deadline of December 27.

43 Things

Do you make lists? 43 Things is a very cool project that shares and combines to-do lists together. What do you want to do with the rest of the year? Find out what other people want to do. It may be a good place to get ideas for scripts or to see the wants that people share.

IDFA

The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam is underway and indieWIRE BLOGS > IDFA is yet another blog from indieWIRE that puts you on the scene.

Audikt

Audikt™ { audio addicted } is an amazing collaborative project between musicians and designers. The musicians contribute a track and the designers create a cover. All of it is combined together on the site where you can download the artwork and the songs. There are even music videos for some of the songs.

Opsound

Opsound: Open Sound Resource is a sound pool and record label that labels itself as an experiment in practical gift economics, a laboratory for new ways of releasing music. They have an Open Pool where you can contribute your sounds as well as take sounds from the pool. They also have had thier first CD release. The sounds are copylefted and released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license. There are some great projects now with sound!

What Stanley Didn't Say

In the Guardian Unlimited's Film Section, there is a fascinating article by Stanley Kubrick's friend, Anthony Frewin about What Stanley Didn't Say in an interview that allegedly took place on the set of Eyes Wide Shut.

Canadian Intellectual Property - Copyrights

When you create something you are making intellectual property and the Canadian Intellectual Property Office is the the main place to find out authoritative information about Canadian copyrights and how to register your intellectual property.

Find: Creative Commons

Find: search for works, browse collections at the Creative Commons site. It's an amazing resource to find work that is shared by artists. I've written about Creative Commons before and it's a fantastic way to find (and even just enjoy) work on the web.

stock.xchng

stock.xchng is a free stock photography site. If you register you can download and use the stock photography from the site with the blessing of the photographers.

Paula Scher: Type Is Image

Type Is Image is a short online documentary directed by Hillman Curtis about designer Paula Scher. Her distinctive use of type makes you think about how beautiful and powerful type can be.

(Via KALIBER10000.)

Type for Television

An article on typographer.org has tips for working with type for television. Some very good, practical tips from David John Earls.

Typophile

{ Typophile } is a site for those who love typography. Lots of information and discussion of fonts and typefaces as well as links to free downloads. One neat thing that they have is a gallery of "found type" which are photos of type that people have taken.

The Movie Movie

The Movie Movie, an aborted project, is based on the idea of taking Donald Trump, Mikhail Gorbachev and others and putting them in the movies they most admire. Isn't it possible that in an alternative universe Donald Trump actually starred in Citizen Kane?

Mark Frauenfelder points to Scenes from Errol Morris' aborted project, The Movie Movie. Morris has a great site that is filled with information about his film, television and commercial works as well as this new series from aborted projects. Errol Morris is one of the most interesting filmmakers working today.

(Via Boing Boing Blog.)

River Rock Studios Final Cut Plugins

River Rock Studios develop content, motion graphics, interactive products. When they are doing that they also develop some tools that they use and then they make them available to everyone. Some you have to pay for and some are free. The Final Cut Pro plugins are great and Jitterbug and Chromatic Glow are freeware.

Jim Jarmusch Interview

The Guardian Unlimited has a story today where Simon Hattenstone meets Jim Jarmusch. It's a long interview that is full of neat information and stories from one of the coolest directors working today.

Digital Do's and Don'ts

Digital Do's and Don'ts is one of the Indie Tips that are part of the site connected with Raindance, which is a UK-based organization that fosters and promotes independent film around the world. You can sign up and get their free ezine to get more tips.

The Future of Digital Media

The Future of Digital Media Series just kicked off at Corante. Where it will run for two months. Where are things going in terms of what you watch and listen to? What is the market that you will be producing for?

(Via Doc Searls Weblog.)

What Is A Weblog?

Halley Suitt is a prolific blogger who does her blogging at Halley's Comment and she recently reposted What Is A Weblog? It provides a good overview of what this thing is and maybe if you are a member of the Screen Arts community it will help you to decide to contribute or maybe just start your own little space and have others watch your brain at work.

The Persuaders

The Persuaders is a documentary essay by Douglas Rushkoff on the PBS documentary series Frontline tonight at 10pm (Atlantic Time on WGBH). Rushkoff looks at how marketers have increasingly worked their messages into our lives. Rushkoff also was the correspondent for the excellent "The Merchants of Cool" (which you can view online) that also looked at the culture of marketing. After the show the web site will be live and feature extended interviews and more in-depth coverage of the issues.

When Voices Rise . . .

When Voices Rise . . . is a documentary film about dismantling segregation in Bermuda when a brave group of Bermudians changed the island with peaceful protests. The film was written and directed by Errol Williams and I helped him edit it. I wrote about hectic time completing the film in an article that I called "When Voices Rise in Triumph".

Nokia Shorts 2004

Nokia Shorts 2004 are online and you can view this small, short films and vote on them. It's a contest connected with Raindance and the British Independent Film Awards. Watching short films on cell phones could be the next big thing. Are you making films that could fill the (very) small screen?

Synoptique

Synoptique :: The Journal of Film and Film Studies is an online journal created by Masters students at Concordia University. It's a great use of the web and has some great writing and thoughtful analysis as well.

Love That Boy

Love That Boy is the quirky 2003 film directed by Andrea Dorfman and produced by Jan Nathanson. The web site for the film has all of the usual information as well as the lists seen in the film along with links to some cool and relevant other sites. Love That Boy is also available on DVD, so if you like the film, support independent Canadian filmmakers by buying a copy!

Flickr!

Front of Bell Road Campus,
originally uploaded by Chris Campbell.

Flickr! is an incredibly addictive photo-sharing service that I've been using for a few months now. It allows you to upload photos to share with the world or just friends and family. There is a free and pro version and you can put photos into group pools, have discussions and find interesting images. The photos are displayed in "streams" so you see the newest ones on top and can view photos from your contacts or the thousands of Flickr! members. One neat thing is that you use "tags" to associate keywords with images and then you can locate the images using the tags. I've created a photoset for the Halifax Campus on Bell Road in my space and later I'll set up a group photo pool to let people share their images of the building. I'm trying to take pictures every week and upload them as we get closer to the day that we'll leave the building.

Stewart Copeland at Mac OS X Conference

Musician Stewart Copeland recently was at O'Reilly's Mac OS X Conference and he spoke with Daniel H. Steinberg about composing music for films.

Basecamp

Basecamp is a great web-based project management system that was developed by 37signals. It's great to stay organized and in communication with everyone that you're working with and Basecamp does it very well. You can get started with a free account that will work with one project and then move up into the more capable accounts to manage multiple projects. I've been using it with a project that I'm working on now and it's helping me quite a bit.

Painless Software Schedules

Joel on Software wrote a great essay on Painless Software Schedules that has tips on using Excel to manage projects and getting things done.