Sundance Film Festival

Longish waits for Sundance shuttles (picture a handful of shivering strangers, huddled together at a bus stop in the dry, frigid Wasatch mountain air) and lengthy circuitous routes between far-flung Sundance screening sites provide for numerous accidental encounters that often remain in memory long after the Festival ends.

Yesterday on the shuttle I ran into New York producer Adi Ezroni, who’s in postproduction of three, count ‘em, films shot simultaneously in Cambodia about sexual exploitation of children, a growing problem worldwide. (I just shot a segment of another documentary in northwest Pakistan, in the earthquake zone, where I encountered the same scourge.) One of Adi‘s films is a dramatic feature, the second a documentary about the same problem in Cambodia, the third a making-of docu about how the first two productions were achieved in the first place. Is this the indie world‘s answer to Peter Jackson‘s shooting three “Lord of the Rings” at once?

Another Sundance crossroads is the New York Lounge at 608 Main Street, sponsored by the New York State Governor‘s Office for Motion Picture and Television Development and hosted by Governor‘s Office Director Pat Swinney Kaufman, whose husband is Lloyd, of Troma fame, the very embodiment of a die-hard New York City indie producer.

A key reason the New York Lounge brims with filmmakers: every day the Governor‘s Office FexEx‘s a fresh shipment of mini-bagels to Park City from Brooklyn. Reason enough to earn this location a gold star on my Sundance map. Did I mention the bagels are free?

Another reason the NY Lounge attracts filmmakers: Arri, one of the NY Lounge‘s sponsors, has an Arri D-20 on display for anyone to test drive. It‘s set up on a hefty Cartoni tripod and configured to output 4:4:4 via dual HD-SDI to a large plasma screen. The D-20 is Arri‘s answer to Panavision‘s Genesis (itself on display several doors up Main Street at the Sundance Film Center) in the epic race to introduce practical Digital Cinematography cameras. The front end of the D-20 is basically an Arri 435, so there‘s a spinning mirror and optical viewfinder. The D-20 also boasts a single huge CMOS sensor the size of a 35mm Academy frame. This means the D-20 uses conventional 35mm PL-mount motion picture lenses.

On Friday noted DP and author Jon Fauer dropped by and shot test exteriors on Main Street with the D-20. I thought the results looked terrific, although Jon was critical of black detail in some shots (although on a plasma, that‘s a tough call). He intends to shoot further tests while the D-20 is here in Park City. As for myself, today an Arri assistant named Chris and I configured the D-20 for handheld work, removing the extended viewfinder and Astro LCD monitor, and adding a handgrip.

Next to my face, the D-20 was quiet (could hardly hear the spinning mirror) but warm. No fan. It‘s broad body and heft (about 15 lbs.) was surprisingly comfortable on my shoulder, although with Master Primes–I tried both 18mm and 35mm–the D-20 was decidedly front-heavy. Chris suggested that by adding to the back end a Grass Valley Venom FlashPak which had been delayed in shipment (better flash RAM than bagels), a more useable balance might be achieved.

Overall I was terribly impressed with the D-20. However upon learning that only two D-20s exist, I wondered whether, as a producer, I would sign on to a long-form project with expensive talent without a rental house full of back-up D-20s.

I had first wandered into the NY Lounge with Tom Fletcher of Fletcher Chicago, who shared with me that his company, heretofore a video rental and sales outfit, had this week taken delivery on its first two film cameras, an Arricam and an Arri 235. And of course a new set of Zeiss primes. Perhaps rumors of film‘s death have been greatly exaggerated…

On the other hand… so far I‘ve seen two Sundance films–the superb, funny “Wordplay,” about obsessive New York Times crossword puzzle fans, and “Somebodies,” a raucous drama about life at the University of Georgia at Athens–plus one Slamdance film, Larry Clark‘s “Wassup Rockers.” All shot digitally. SD, HD, SD, in that order.

The revelation is Clark‘s film, handsomely photographed by Steve Gainer, ASC. I saw a 35mm print. I thought it had been filmed on 35mm. I‘m not often fooled. So I was floored, absolutely floored, to discover it had been shot on a Canon XL2.

Stay tuned.