A Soap Box?

Watching films is Making films. I watched EROS today, the three film anthology by directors Soderbergh, Wong Kar Wai and Antonioni. My opinion on the film aside, there are two things I wanted to definitely mention.

(1) ARCLIGHT cinemas. The ARCLIGHT cinemas are located in Hollywood, right next to other amazing thing about Los Angeles: Amoeba Music. You just need one day to have fun at both of these Places. I have seen close to a dozen films at the Arclight this semester. The experience of watching a movie is close to luxurious. The chairs are twice as wide as a regular theatre, there is PLENTY of leg-room, an usher actually INTRODUCES the movie before it starts, and IN PERSON, no machines, your seat has a number and you get to choose when you buy your ticket and FINALLY, no tickets are sold or persons permitted into the theatre once the feature starts. Isn't that just GRAND? There are about 20 screens in 1/2 the theatre and an ultra special single screen, LARGE theatre on the other 1/2. This is called the Arclight DOME and has the best projection system in the country. 4k Digital Projection, 35mm/70mm/S16, surround dolby, dts, they just have it hooked up. DOME is where the premieres happen, where I saw SIN CITY opening night. AMOEBA MUSIC next to it is an amazing huge store for indy music. It is also excellent. The floor I like best is the one with foreign films, indy films and other such excellent stuff. Can you imagine an entire station dedicated to The Criterion Collection? You see tons of other people nitpicking. These guys have just all the music you can imagine.

(2) Films! Ithaca has Cinemapolis and Fall Creek and Cornell Cinema, but I think, the Park School should have its own screening clubs. And one ridiculously easy way of doing this is by reserving ONE room, with a nice video projector and good sound, which can be used by students to see films at any time of the day. Wouldn't it be cool to just peek in and find an amazing film being watched by some student you have never met and just enjoy it for a little before you rush out? Or meet people? I don't know. I just feel very idea-ful when I'm watching films and some of the best films I have seen have been recommended to me by other people.

Also, for anyone who knows graduating Senior Sherry Kauk, she just got accepted into AFI, in the cinematography program. And for anyone who has considered grad school for film, this is absolutely the cream of the crop school with a ridiculously low acceptance rate. She doesn't know if she is going, but its just cool to have a re-confirmation that Ithaca kids have what it takes. All we need to do is enter our films in festivals and we will find out AGAIN and AGAIN. Just do it.

Which takes me to my new thing: One of the things I want to do when I get back to Ithaca is organize a 1 credit course or have a round table about fillm-festivals. I know Prof. Gatten and me were talking about it (who by the way just won a Guggenheim!!). I just have been studying film festivals for about 5 months now, and having worked at STRAND, which relies heavily on festival studies for its distribution. I have my own film running and, I know I had to do a lot of learning on my own. One of the most important parts of making a film is probably having it shown. Probably 33% of the process if not more, because a good film that doesn't get shown is just as good as never have been made. Film festivals, like anything else, have secrets and ways of being worked. A good way to start learning about this is reading CHRIS GORE's book: The Ultimate Film Festival Survival Guide. It's cheap, get it on amazon.

I really do think it's important. I mean, why isn't festivals an essential part of the education at Park? Especially if we say we are so independent, film festivals is where our films will live or die! I think it should be a course in itself, a requirement for production people. I am aware of festival requirements on Chang's CP2 and Cathy's fiction course. There may be other classes out tehre where professors talk about festivals. What is surprising is that I do not know ANY students who entered their films in festivals. Having never attended any, what is more surprising is that they are easily able to determine that the film is not good enough to get accepted into a festival! I've seen so many festival shorts this semester, that I can confidently say a LOT of the films I've seen at the end of semester films at IC would have made it to some top class festivals. It takes research, a good application and a competent film to make a good festival. It looks stellar on your resume and just is all good. WHY NOT!!

Okay, not a soap-box. Just somethings I was thinking about. If you guys have any thoughts on the subject, you could post a comment or email me and I can post it.