Comments on: The American Ruling Class

By: The Chutry Experiment » The American Ruling Class

The Chutry Experiment » The American Ruling Class — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:16:14 +0000

[...] the brief blog dust-up a few days ago at Agnes’s place, I decided to check out John Kirby’s The American [...]

By: David R

David R — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:39:38 +0000

Wow. What a thread. How’d I miss this one? Low and Behold is a hybrid, though it leans more toward narrative fiction than doc fiction. I’m curious what kind of sales, John, your film is breaking in the educational venues. I’ve been traveling with Mardi Gras: Made in China for a few years, and though I don’t keep up with records (nor am I intent on “breaking” them), I’m wondering if you and I share a similar approach? We’ve managed to sell our film to more than 500 colleges (not including non-profits, etc or speaking fees). Email if you have time: mgmadeinchina@yahoo.com and maybe we can share ideas. Also, I’ve seen part of your film, but I’m a bit ashamed to say that I didn’t finish it. It reminded me of a book I once read about social class in America (a sociology book, that is) and it seemed to directly insert itself into a form of rational discourse that lectured and imitated a thread of liberal ideology that, if you agree with and passionately cling to it, then the film carries you. Or maybe not. Interesting idea, but it became redundant and prefer films to step away from ideology. Perhaps I watched a rough cut??? However, I’ll accept the above invitation to watch it again if you’ll send a dvd to David Redmon, 810 Edgewood Ave, Columbia, MO 65203. Looking forward to hearing from you!

By: Jay C.

Jay C. — Sat, 31 May 2008 18:47:51 +0000

Regarding hybrid docs,

I’m not sure if this really counts as anything anyone might be interested in, but I’ve recently been working on a series of developer diaries for a yet-to-be-released video game for the XBox 360. The interesting part is I’ve been shooting a faux documentary as a sort of viral marketing campaign for the game, and the approach as been very grounded in actual documentary film making.

We’ve set up a website (www.norwegianfilmcommittee.org) and the film claims to be a documentary about the discovery of a mechanical being in ice. It’s called ‘The Goblin Man of Norway’, and it features interviews with people who are essentially playing themselve, but adjusting their line of expertise to fit the story. It’s been an interesting experiment in manipulating both the interviews and the audience. (All with consent of course!) All inspired by Werner Herzog’s ‘Wild Blue Yonder’.

Anyways, here’s the links to the first two videos if you’re interested in checking them out. If you do, let me know what you think at jcheel@cogeco.ca.

First video: http://www.norwegianfilmcommittee.org/en/media.html

Second video (first five minutes advertises the game): http://www.gametrailers.com/player/34594.html?type=

By: John Kirby

John Kirby — Fri, 30 May 2008 08:06:28 +0000

That is correct: one can decide whether a film SEEMS good based on Youtube. But image quality, for instance, and editing cannot be judged at the level of the professional critic on YouTube, obviously.

The art of judging things on Youtube AS “Youtube Clips” is a new one, and more properly belongs to a species of mediated video-art archeology. Since so many of the technical parameters of the underlying film or video are changed,(not to mention lifted out of context), in an important sense the underlying strata is transformed into something new.

This will be the case until the day, in the not-too-distant future, when compression at fullscreen is 1:1. Then films will have worked themselves back up to the image quality of television…

By: Chad

Chad — Thu, 29 May 2008 23:28:58 +0000

From my understanding, filmmakers put clips of their films on youtube to represent the product to an audience that otherwise would have no concept of what to expect from it. There’s nothing wrong with watching them and concluding either “This LOOKS good or bad as a film” or “This IS good or bad as a clip”.

By: Agnes Varnum

Agnes Varnum — Wed, 28 May 2008 22:48:05 +0000

Hi Bob! I put together the list for Tribeca Film Institute’s Reframe project. It is a nascent website that will be a portal for purchasing independent films. They have a relationship with Amazon, so early films will be ones that are available on Amazon but sorted into curated lists like mine. Later, TFI will be restoring and digitizing works that have been unavailable. I’ll post on this blog when the lists go up, and in the meantime, you can check Reframe blog as well: http://reframecollection.com/

By: Brit

Brit — Wed, 28 May 2008 21:37:29 +0000

Bob…check out:

John Maringouin’s RUNNING STUMBLED; Montieth McCullum and Ariana Gerstein’s HYBRID and most of Jay Rosenblatt’s 16mm work (who has worked with Caveh a fair amount as well.)

By: Bob Ray

Bob Ray — Wed, 28 May 2008 20:31:41 +0000

I was hoping to discover more hybrid docs through this post, but got dragged into a sh!t storm of nit-pickery… anyway, I enjoyed the hybrid doc I Am a Sex Addict. Any other recommendations? Where’s this list of yours Agnes? thanks,
-bob