Sundance Film Festival

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.

(Yes, that Steven Ascher, co-author with Edward Pincus of the classic “The Filmmaker’s Handbook,” which he says will soon arrive in a new edition exploring the latest technical issues surrounding digital shooting, editing, and post. “So Far So Fast” was shot by Ascher in DVCAM with a Sony PD150 and DSR500 and edited in Final Cut Pro.)

At the Press Center I encountered the young producer/director of a Dramatic Competition film who wins, hands down, my award for indie resourcefulness at Sundance. Seems he once worked at a hotel where he often carried the baggage of a big wheel from a well-known lab & post facility. When much later he needed postproduction services for his low-budget Super-16 drama, he obtained a film-to-HD transfer from the same lab executive at the unbeatable insider price of free. Now, that‘s tipping! The transferred clips were assembled via D5 and projected as HD at Sundance. I promised I wouldn‘t reveal the names of the parties involved, but it‘s satisfying to hear stories of corporate beneficence towards struggling indies, who, after all, are the film industry‘s unpaid farm team.

Speaking of “half-D.I.” — what I call the emerging strategy of transferring 16mm or 35mm negative to HD or 2K for a digital finish and, later, HD projection at a festival like Sundance, the idea being to dodge the high cost of a film-out until a theatrical distributor picks up the film — perhaps the most impressive film I‘ve seen is Dramatic Competition contender “Sherrybaby.” Pitch-perfect writing and directing by former documentary-maker Laurie Collyer, with a bold, unforgettable performance by Maggie Gyllenhaal. Handsomely shot in Super-16 by DP Russell Fine, scanned to 2K at Technicolor in NY, finished and transferred to HD at Goldcrest Post in Manhattan under the personal supervision of Managing Director Tim Spitzer.

(For the record, Sundance screens all HD, whether up-res‘d from SD or downconverted from 2K, as compressed HDCAM using Digital Projection, Inc. projectors incorporating Texas Instrument‘s micro-mirror technology.)

Zaniest D.I. scuttlebutt at Sundance? Gotta be 4K scanning of Super-16. Over mini-bagels at the New York Lounge on Main Street, New York DP Jendra Jarnigan told me about DP Milton Kam‘s recent shoot of a rural drama in India, helmed by a New York director of Indian descent. The Super-16 negative was scanned to 4K in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), then assembled and color-corrected in Chennai (formerly Madras). Most 35mm Hollywood films settle for a 2K scan and finish, so what I would like to ask Kam (whose “Punching at the Sun” is premiering in the Sundance section called Spectrum) is this: How much D.I. resolution is too much D.I. resolution?

My favorite anecdote at Sundance? Chatting in the hallway after the premiere of Kirby Dick‘s MPAA-bashing “This Film is Not Yet Rated,” - in which Dick hires a private dick (one tough chick and her daughter) to unmask members of the Motion Picture Association of America‘s secret Ratings and Appeals Boards, including, despite MPAA denials, several clergy (!) - renown cinematographer Haskell Wexler approached me to say that two clips used by Dick to demonstrate Ratings Board hypocrisy were his, from “Who‘s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” and “Coming Home.” Dick had excerpted from “Coming Home” (1978) an exquisite facial close-up of Jane Fonda experiencing a marathon orgasm to illustrate how the Ratings Board of late had clamped down on extended depictions of female sexuality. Wexler said that he and his camera had been in close to Jon Voight and Jane Fonda as they performed that scene. The moment Hal Ashby yelled “Cut!”, Fonda bolted upright, grabbed a phone, and dialed Cesar Chavez to strategize over his farm workers‘ boycott of grape growers.

Have times changed, or what?