Critic's Notebook

Cinequest at 20

Wasn’t it just yesterday that Cinequest was the scrappy upstart amongst Bay Area film festivals? Apparently not: This year finds San Jose’s annual cinematic blowout entering its third decade.

February may be the shortest month, but Cinequest is going longer nonetheless, at least for this 20th anniversary annum: The 2010 fest runs nearly two weeks, Feb. 23 through March 7, once again at venues all within three blocks’ walking distance in downtown SJ. (For those with a car-free carbon imprint, they’re about 20 minutes’ walk from CalTrain.)

As ever, the primary Cinequest mix is equal-parts heavy on both world premieres (mostly U.S. indies) and recent festival faves from around the world.

topics: activism, actors, audiences, bay area, genre films, how-to, independent film, technology, world cinema

Ask the Documentary Doctor

Turning talking heads into storytellers

Dear Doc Doctor: I have interviewees, talking heads that are making the story dull. I was told that in today’s market I’ll be better off with characters. Any way I can morph one into the other or is it too late?

Doc Doctor: Yes, you might fare better in today’s market if you have a character-driven story. In years of consulting and seeing how those films did in the market, I learned that if you don’t have characters, having people with any story function can be just as good.

topics: authors, directors, diy, documentary, how-to, independent film

Ask the Documentary Doctor

The upside of downtime

Dear Doc Doctor: It seems ages since I started this film. The topic is still relevant but I don’t know whether the time passed in production helps the film or not.

Doc Doctor: It most likely does!

Time-related issues are a constant worry and topic of discussion in consultations—first and foremost because film is a time-bound art, like music and theater. Many of the concerns turn on the issue of how to arrange story elements in time and over time–as opposed to how to arrange elements in space, as in painting or sculpture. Yet the time that gives documentary filmmakers the biggest anguish is the time that happens outside the film: time-management in production and the time taken between creative moments—from shoot to shoot, from first cut to second cut. Even though both of these time concerns can be seen as production hurdles, they both have a strong impact on storytelling.

topics: directors, diy, documentary, how-to

First-person

Indie Toolkit writers rewind/fast-forward on the year/decade in film

The decade in screenwriting: Looking back over the past several years—to 2006, for example, when four of the American Film Institute’s top 10 films of the year were comedies, as opposed to just one each in 2008 and 2009—a number of prominent 2009 films took on serious topical subjects, from war to racism to financial insolvency. An ever-expanding number of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror vehicles offered near fatal adrenaline rushes and perhaps a needed relief from everyday troubles. But an especially notable trend in the stories told on film in the past year was toward the dark, lonely, inside story.

topics: activism, audiences, authors, bay area, critics, digital distribution, digital filmmaking, directors, drama, dramatic films, dvd, hollywood, how-to, independent film, internet, screenwriting

In Production

Rainin winners prime new wave of social-issue dramas

For the great majority of the public, documentaries are still educational films while narrative features are “the movies.” It’s the rare fiction feature film that handles social justice themes without condescension and oversimplification. The San Francisco Film Society/Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking Grants were created to support the local development of lively and intelligent social-issue narrative films, with the hope of strengthening the San Francisco filmmaking community—and bringing more forward-thinking films by talented makers into general release. The grants, which run 2009-13, will be awarded in the spring and fall of each year and the total amount disbursed over these five years will be more than $3 million. The inaugural class for the $35,000 grants consists of Amanda Micheli and Jeff Zimbalist, Fall 2009, Richard Levien, Spring 2009. Here’s the scoop on their projects.

topics: activism, bay area, directors, how-to, immigration, independent film, political film, screenwriting

Ask the Documentary Doctor

The upside of downtime

Dear Doc Doctor: It seems ages since I started this film. The topic is still relevant but I don’t know whether the time passed in production helps the film or not.

Doc Doctor: It most likely does!

Time-related issues are a constant worry and topic of discussion in consultations—first and foremost because film is a time-bound art, like music and theater.

topics: directors, diy, documentary, how-to

Fear-Free Fundraising

How to entice and reward potential donors

So you’re drafting a fundraising prospect list for your indie film. Looks like it’s shaping up to be the most extensive list of individual donor prospects known to mankind. Good job! It covers your personal connections (everyone from Uncle Ernie to your former Econ 101 professor), people your personal connections can introduce you to who care about the same issues your film covers and known suspects in the community who just love film. You have really done your homework and you even know how much you plan to ask each one of these prospects for. So what’s the problem? Well, I’ll bet you know what you want from them. But do you have any clue what they want from you?

topics: bay area, filmmakers, funding, how-to