2006 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES AWARDS FOR DOCUMENTARY AND DRAMATIC FILMS IN INDEPENDENT FILM AND WORLD CINEMA COMPETITIONS

The winners of the 2006 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prizes, World Cinema Jury Prizes, and Audience Awards were announced tonight at the closing award ceremony in Park City, Utah. For the first time in the Festival‘s history, both the Grand Jury Prizes and Audience Awards for Documentary and Dramatic Competitions were presented to the same two films. The award-winning films were selected by distinguished jurors for the Independent Film Competition: Documentary; Independent Film Competition: Dramatic; World Cinema Competition: Documentary; and World Cinema Competition: Dramatic. Audience Awards were also bestowed on films within each of these categories based on the results of ballots cast by Festival filmgoers. Additionally, the Shorts Jury awarded the Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking to an American short and the Jury Prize in International Short Filmmaking to an international short film. The Festival is the premier showcase for American independent film, and an important new platform for international independent film, screening films that embody risk-taking, diversity, and aesthetic innovation.

“On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Sundance Institute and the close of the 22nd Sundance Film Festival, we celebrate the winning artists and their films, and have been fortunate to share their stories, diverse voices, and original aesthetics with our Sundance audiences,” says Geoffrey Gilmore, Director of the Sundance Film Festival. “This year we‘ve seen a number of films that deal sensitively with the timely and complex issues of cultural assimilation and community. Clearly, these compelling stories along with the quality of filmmaking have resonated with audiences and jury members alike.” more

Ran into Chris Brickler in the Intel Experience Zone. He’s exactly the kind of person Intel is counting on to remake media. A longtime music producer and international dotcom bubble boy (GTE, BT and a few well-endowed startups) he’s hard at work now building an evolving, music-driven, documentary and community called Truth in Relationships.

Let’s back up. The plan started as a family project to capture a video account of his grandparents’ 65-year marriage. Chris had done some corporate video, he knew his way around a Sony PD150 and Sony Vegas. He knew how to score his own work, and in some cases even let the score lead. Since then, he has filmed 25 people on 4 continents, as well as relationship experts NAMES–some shot with loaner cameras he distributed among trusted friends. The result is kind of an organically-growing amalgamation of relationship stories…most recently a My Space posting elicited hundreds of responses from people who wanted to talk on camera about commitment, adultery, love, sex, marriage.

But before the film was even finished, Chris also launched a site and community and began playing out pieces of the footage into an environment that invited comment, blogging, etc. He talks about things like online documentary portals and the possibility that people will eventually contribute their own video–or remix his, just as people have done worldwide with his music.

The Adobe Macromedia merger is moving out of the stage of press releases and breathless analyst speculation and starting to manifest in the real world. The new Adobe Production Studio includes a Flash export feature. This is the tip of the iceburg, says Adobe VP of product management for Web and Video (and Discreet veteran) Jim Guerard, sitting in a booth at the Moose Café on Main Street. It‘s a level 1 implementation of the potential for integrating some of the world‘s most ubiquitous content creation tools with the world‘s only (so far) interactive web video format..

This intersection means something profound for Adobe‘s graphic design professionals, those people who use Creative Suite tools to make all manner of communication materials. Motion graphics become accessible (required really) in modern graphics communication. Storytelling finally becomes that old idea of multi-media experience that some hapless settlers pursued gallantly with the technology that was available in the 1980s. (Anyone remember that interactive movie at Iwerks where you could sit in a seat, push buttons and vote on the ending to a 70mm film? Talk about versioning.) more

On Park City‘s Main Street a wiry young man playing accordion and wearing a sandwich board promoting the tongue-in-cheek micro-festival Tromadance was told by local cop to stop making music on the sidewalk or face a $150 fine. Virtually all Festival film posters and flyers had been stripped off walls, windows, poles this week. There remained few visual clues that a major film festival was underway in this small mountain resort. Rowdy, chaotic, young, independent - these don‘t mix well with orderly and upscale. Face-lifted to better end, however, was the Film Center (in years past called the Digital Center) in the basement of the Mall on Main Street. Classic Mies van der Rohe Barcelona lounge chairs and chic white backlit walls framed tastefully arranged booths including Adobe, Heuris, Intel, HP, Blackmagic, Sony, Canon, and Panavision. Usually this space is a gray, dimly lit, and trade-show looking, so kudos to Director of Sundance Digital Initiatives Ian Calderon for spiffing up the premises.

Notably the only piece of film equipment at the Film Center was a Panavision Panaflex with a 17.5-75mm Primo Zoom, on hand for direct comparison to a Panavision Genesis, also sporting a 17.5-75mm Primo Zoom. Genesis is Panavision‘s entry in the Digital Cinema camera sweepstakes and uniquely uses a single 35mm-sized custom Sony CCD chip with RGB microfilters for color image capture. The body of Genesis is about the same size as the Panaflex, and the portable Sony SRW-1 HDCAM-SR deck mounted atop the Genesis resembles the Panaflex‘s 35mm magazine. (Both cameras can rear-mount their “magazines” for Steadicam use.) Truth is, Genesis is a beefed up F900 with a giant CCD. Even the menus are the same. 1920 x 1080 output however is 4:4:4 RGB. At present there are 30 Genesis cameras worldwide, with up to 12 used in the recent Australian production of “Superman,” due out this summer. more

Slamdance Announces 2006 Awards, Featuring Over $200,000 in Prizes

Best of Slamdance Screenings in Salt Lake City, Los Angeles and New York

Park City, Utah — The Slamdance Film Festival announced its winners tonight in over 20 categories, including winners in the Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker Competition and Screenplay and Teleplay Competitions at the Slamdance Sparky Award ceremonies at Suede in Park City. Over $200,000 in prizes were awarded. Following the Sparky award ceremony was a party featuring celebrity DJ‘s DJ Swamp (Beck‘s DJ); DJ C-Minus (Vanguard LA); and Tito Plenty (San Francisco).

“Over the years the Park City Slamdance screenings have become a place for the industry to discover new talent,” says Slamdance director Peter Baxter.

“Salt Lake City has become increasingly important from a public perspective.

The “Sparkies” were followed by a party featuring celebrity DJ’s

Award Winners will be shown in Salt Lake City in the Westminster College, Gore Auditorium (1840 South 1300 East). The winning films will be scheduled at one of the following times: 1 PM; 3:30 PM and 6 PM (MST). Further information will be posted at www.slamdance.com.

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You overhear a lot of things in the Film Center…usually things that confirm that filmmaking tools are really very poorly understood. I heard one woman–who was clearly knowledgeable about many technology-related things–emphatically insisting that Avid made only high-end systems for Hollywood filmmakers and that the average person had to look to other companies.

“Victim of our own success,” is–not unexpectedly–how Avid‘s Michael Phillips characterized it (while sitting in one of those Mies van de Rohr chair, semi-illuminated by a pinspot). That may sound glib, but it‘s actually true. Very few products in any industry have ever had the market dominance that Avid had at the high end of Hollywood. There was a time when something over 95% of feature films were cut on Avids. Avid‘s higher end products are still dominant in Hollywood. But Avid has been supporting desktop filmmaking for some time now, with Avid Xpress Pro. Phillips, who is principal product designer for Avid‘s post production tools says that Xpress Pro can do for $1500 what a Film Composer used to do when it was essentially inventing non-linear editing. more

HOUSE OF SAND WINS ALFRED P. SLOAN PRIZE AT 2006 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

Park City, UT–The 2006 Sundance Film Festival is pleased to announce that THE HOUSE OF SAND, directed by Andrucha Waddington and written by Elena Soarez, is the recipient of this year‘s Alfred P. Sloan Prize. The Prize, which carries a $20,000 cash award to the writer/director provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, is presented to the outstanding feature film focusing on science or technology as a theme, or depicting a scientist, engineer or mathematician as a major character. The Prize will be presented at the Sundance Film Festival Awards Ceremony on Saturday, January 28.

THE HOUSE OF SAND is the story of a woman across three generations. In the remote dunes of Brazil, Maria spends her life while an entire century passes by her, her house, and sand. The film, which screened in this year‘s World Cinema Dramatic Competition section, was recognized for its “poetic meditation on the physics of time and the biology of human variation in a story of an isolated family’s search for meaning against the backdrop of a half-century’s scientific and technological evolution.”

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You encounter the darnedest scuttlebutt cruising Sundance.

Like overhearing programmer John Vanco of Manhattan‘s IFC Center (formerly The Waverly in Greenwich Village) remarking to producer Scott Macaulay while waiting in a standby line that he‘d solved the problem of presenting Lars von Trier live to an American audience. Von Trier, the maverick Danish director known for Dogme 95, is famously fearful of airplanes and trains. He‘s never been to the U.S. and travels to Cannes only in a Winnebago, something he can stop and get out of. Vanco‘s solution to interviewing von Trier live at IFC Center this weekend (Saturday Jan. 28 and Sunday Jan. 29) after each noontime screening of his latest minimalist tract on American history, “Manderlay,” is ingenious: Apple‘s iChat projected on a big screen, with von Trier safely ensconced in front of his Mac back in Denmark.

Or how about IM‘s (instant messages) as the new fan mail? After a screening of Jeanne Jordan‘s and Steven Ascher‘s “So Far So Fast” — a deeply moving Documentary Competition entry about the remarkably defiant spirit of a Newton, Massachusetts family met with the horrible news that their handsome, outgoing 29-year old eldest son has developed Lou Gehrig‘s Disease (ALS) — Ascher told me that audience members had gleaned ALS-victim Stephen Heywood‘s IM (instant message) address off the big screen and were in fact IM‘ing him. Heywood, who‘s lost all motor control and was flown to Sundance strapped to a portable artificial lung, can no longer speak and must communicate by tapping messages into a computer by knocking his head against a special switch á la Stephen Hawking. IM‘ing gives Heywood, who can‘t use a telephone, the means to communicate long distance in real time. His replies are painstakingly brief but witty, says Ascher, who notes that the Internet is a vital lifeline for Heywood in his immobile state. Ascher however doesn‘t sanction contacting Heywood in this intrusive way. more

While so much of the technology buzz (such as it is) at Sundance centers on camera formats, the Film Center is also a great place to understand modern desktop post production. Just as digital video formats expand options (and reduce costs) for cinematography, there are new options for desktop post production too.

As cameras become–effectively–computers, computers become data processing tools for image data. Much of this processing–which used to take place in labs and in post production facilities can now be simplified into powerful desktop operations, accessible to almost anyone. That‘s not a “democratization” hype thing, it‘s just a fair assessment of the lay of the land. This does not mean that you can buy a workstation and some software and never need anything ever again. Mastering, DI, film out (or file out) and other processes, especially those related to large format deliverables often still require a trip to the post house. But for the modern filmmaker, it is possible to put together a desktop infrastructure that supports the bulk of your daily work.

Here‘s what‘s going in post production at the Sundance Film Center, from the ground up. more

Press Release: 2006 Sundance Film Festival Attracts Record Online Audiences at Sundance.org

APPROACHING ONE MILLION DOWNLOADS OF SHORT FILMS, FILMMAKER INTERVIEWS AND BEHIND THE SCENES FOOTAGE

Sundance Institute announced today a record number of people have experienced the 2006 Sundance Film Festival at www.sundance.org. Online visitors have downloaded a range of free Festival programming including fifty short films from the Festival, daily video highlights, exclusive filmmaker interviews and behind the scenes footage from the event which runs January 19-29 in Park City, UT. During the first seven days of the Festival, an estimated 700,000 viewers watched Festival videos on the Internet, nearly twice the rate of the 2005 Festival during the same time period. Sundance Film Festival is the only major film festival to premiere short films online in conjunction with their premieres in Park City, UT.

“The Web provides Sundance short filmmakers with a platform to reach the broadest audience with their content. We are delighted by the response this year and we expect to grow exponentially,” says Sundance Institute Director of Digital Initiatives Ian Calderon. more