The screen scene

By Michael Guillen

I nostalgically recall when my home computer had no graphics capability so that — when I sat down to write — I actually wrote, conjuring images in my head, finding just the right words to write the right picture. These days, like so many others, I cut to the chase and divert myself away from authorial duties with quick and ready online clips, exploring the visual aspect of what is being termed the new “social cinema.” I have a handful to recommend, the first few being free downloads and the last few pay for views.

1. There is, of course, the jam packed YouTube where you’re encouraged to “broadcast yourself.” I don’t know how much time you have, but, YouTube would be completely unmanageable for me without The Daily Reel, which not only culls out the best from that continuously evolving morass of clips, but actually offers fine commentary by journalists such as Anthony Kaufman, Matthew Ross and Liz Miller on the ongoing debates regarding the online viewing phenomenon. The Daily Reel isn’t limited to YouTube; they go all over the Internet looking for choice clips, distilling their forays into a weekly top ten.

2. Although Spike Priggen is much younger than I am, his sister sites — Bedazzled and Scopitones — manage to zero in (no doubt out of retro fashion) to the tender years of my formative youth. Here are the musical TV appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” “The Carol Burnett Show,” “The Smothers Brothers,” “Sonny and Cher,” and “The Dick Cavett Show” that kept me bopping in front of Mom’s TV trays. Let alone, before that, the Cheerios commercials (in nostalgic black and white) that had a wimp like me longing to “rustle up some muscle” to combat black knights and alligators, let alone refuse feminine advances (even then I knew something was up). Bedazzled is one of those blogs that has me methodically dipping into archives, month by month, post by post, to scoop and download the clips when media mattered most.

3. Spike has also reintroduced the world to classic Scopitones from the U.S. and abroad. These are wonderful pre-MTV flashbacks with buxom bikini-clad lovelies with one foot in the ’50s and the other in the swinging surfboard ’60s. The kitsch is thrillingly contagious.

4. One especially welcome development is that Global Film Initiative, along with announcing their 2007 Global Lens lineup, is offering free access to their shorts program, which includes seven films, representing Mexico, Iran, Morocco, South Africa, India, Argentina and Brazil. These distinctive, creative shorts effectively introduce the quality of GFI’s feature fare.

5. Around the time Todd Brown at Twitch began extolling the virtues of Jaman, I heard about their efforts at this year’s Cinequest and took note of their partnership with SFIFF50. Download their player, pay minimal viewing fees, and you have access to an increasing film festival inventory, even if you’re a cinephile distant from the regional hubs. At the SFIFF50 press conference held earlier this week, Executive Director Graham Leggat sketched that The International Online Project which the festival is developing with Jaman will take five to ten films — with priority granted to Bay Area filmmakers — to make available for free download to a worldwide audience. Only a limited number of people will have that download access and only for 24 hours after their last theatrical screening. This “attempt to reverse the polarity” usually associated with an international film festival — wherein films and filmmakers are brought in — reveals the festival’s interest in having what Leggat terms “a radiant quality” by taking these chosen films out into the world. The choice of films has not yet been finalized. “As you know,” Leggat qualified, “everybody in the film festival business is wondering how exactly online exhibition and distribution fits into the universe of rights, sales, etc. So it’s a delicate process for us to discuss this with the filmmakers. We’re proceeding very carefully.” SFIFF50 expects to announce the finalized details of The International Online Project 10 days or so before the festival.

6. For those fond of Asian cinema, the online magazine Firecracker has long been a fount of information. Recently, they began offering festival-quality films from China, Malaysia and the Philippines online via their Firecracker TV, several which have already won festival honors abroad and not yet made it stateside. The Malaysian fare especially segues neatly with the showcase programmed by the San Francisco Film Society a couple of years ago, providing timely follow-up.

04.06.2007