By Michael Goldman

Veteran rocker Neil Young (using his filmmaking alter-ego, Bernard Shakey) hit Sundance to promote his new movie, CSNY Deja Vu–the film chosen to close the festival. The movie documents the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young 2004 Freedom of Speech tour, and the reaction to the tour’s anti-war message across North America just around the time that public opinion began to turn against events in Iraq. Young teamed with veteran television journalist Mike Cerre to intermingle concert footage from the tour with a series of journalistic vignette stories produced by Cerre at Young’s behest, all shot in HD, covering people and events surrounding the tour–from his band-mate Steven Stills’ work campaigning for Democratic candidates to Iraq veterans using music to protest the war to some vocal fans reacting with great anger to the band’s political message. After arriving at Sundance, Young spoke with millimeter senior editor Michael Goldman about his reasons for making the movie, his growing interest in filmmaking, and his views on the use of film as a medium for creating political dialogue.

To listen to the podcast interview click here.
(To download: Right Click, Save As)

Check out our entire Sundance Podcast Archive.

Park City’s weather continues its upswing, with optimistic blue skies, blinding daylight that makes snow banks dazzle like Hollywood teeth, and thin, icy mountain air that invigorates exposed skin and reveals your every breath.

No matter how good the films—and they are good this year–after being cooped up in the gloom of flickering shadows all day, a shot of cold air to the face is as bracing as a shot of strong spirits would be. Good thing, because the latter is a delicacy in Mondo Utah, where buying a round requires temporarily joining a club, usually for the duration of the imbibing.

Sundance is the ultimate temporary club membership, ten days of pretending that the world revolves around a resort festival of small films with limited commercial appeal. Where, absurdly, festival volunteers must shout, “Please turn off your Blackberries!” as the lights dim.

Not your Treos, your Motorolas, your iPhones… tellingly Blackberries are the official mobile communication tool of Hollywood, whose flying monkeys monitor Sundance premieres while compulsively stealing glances at their email in the dark—or is it the other way around? Do they really expect to find box office champions here? more

Park City’s been overcast and gray since Day 1, but this morning a brilliant platinum light tore a hole in the endless cloud cover and ignited the overlooking Wasatch peaks, back-lighting a sparkly veil of glassy no-see-ums, tiny ice crystals too delicate to form flakes, that danced on wafts of air until they melted in my face.

Yes, I admit the night before I’d seen Academy-award nominee (Taxi to the Dark Side) Alex Gibney’s latest masterwork, Gonzo, the Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, but I deny any pharmaceutical inspiration, at least this early in the morning, as I stop before the Yarrow Hotel to marvel at this floaty, twinkly, sun-lit scrim. Inside the Yarrow a press screening of Morgan Spurlock’s latest saga-in-cheek, Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?, is almost underway, and I race into the theater to find a seat just as the lights fall.

Both docus, I’m happy to report, are polished to high theatrical sheen with eye-catching graphics, animated illustrations (the great Ralph Steadman in Gonzo), and well-crafted high-definition cinematography (D.P. Maryse Alberti in Gonzo). Both acquaint audiences with past and present avatars of U.S. politics: the tragic George McGovern, smarmy Richard Nixon, idealistic Jimmy Carter (Gonzo); the hubristic tag team of W. and Osama (Where in the World…). Both deserve and will likely obtain limited theatrical runs (though Sundance 2008 has been notably short of acquisitions so far). more

I overhear director Alex Rivera’s publicist telling him that my interview will probably focus on some technical aspects of the film. He seems to think he’s not the right person to address that topic. I’m thinking “ok not all directors are technical”’ Except it soon emerges as we talk that Alex cut Sleep Dealer himself on Final Cut Pro, built the animatic for the 400+ effects shots in After Effects and Photoshop, and even did a couple of final effects shots himself in AE (on his laptop). To him, that’s not technical. His fluency in editing and effects software is just how he gets the job done. No more technical than using Microsoft Word to write this post. more

John Lyons knew director Boaz Yakin from years ago on Uptown Girls. “I was on vacation in Woodstock, Labor Day weekend,” Lyons recalls. He said, ‘I want my film in Sundance, can you start Tuesday?’”

Yakin was shooting in NY and when Lyons showed up day one there were hours of footage sitting in the production office that no one had seen. No assistant on the film. Lyons thought he’d start digitizing, but the sound recordist still had all the sound on his PD6. So Lyons started digitizing picture—there really was no time to wait. more

On Saturday at the Outerspace Cinema, I caught the session “Sharing a Vision,” moderated by Avid. Director/producer Doug Liman (Swingers, The Bourne Identity, and the upcoming Jumper) sat down with editor Saar Klein and spoke to an overflowing audience about “the importance of finding the right editor.” The two first collaborated on The Bourne Identity, when both were newcomers to the action genre. (Klein had previously worked in The Thin Red Line and Almost Famous.) They recently collaborated on the upcoming sci-fi flick Jumper, undertaking yet another foray into unknown territory: effects-heavy science fiction.

They described an interesting relationship. Apparently their first phone conversation charitably can be labeled “curt,” after Klein told Liman that he hated the original Bourne script past the first 15 pages. But soon, Liman came to respect Klein’s honesty and independence of vision as an editor. They both found themselves fighting the studio as they tried to avoid adding to the film action cliches such as loud scoring during action sequences.

On their collaborations, Liman said that Klein had become as involved as a screenwriter for the simple reason that he was always around during preproduction. By the same token, Klein describes Liman as a good editor - he always has his own Media Composer for every project (which, of course, allows Klein to tell Liman to find “that one shot he’s looking for” himself). more

The word “cherries” may be an American Army slang term that refers to unused or untried military equipment and weaponry, but it is also the title of a digitally-shot short film from our neighbors across the pond. Funded by Film London and the U.K. Film Council, Cherries tackles a controversial statistic in Great Britain.

The country has the lowest deployment and recruitment age for soldiers in Europe and has been condemned by Amnesty International as the only European country that has routinely sent under-18s into armed conflict. And, according to the film’s press release, for the first time in its history, the Territorial Army has seen members compulsorily drafted into regular army units in combat zones.

Director Tom Harper and first-time Screenwriter Fiona Kissane set Cherries, shot in HDCAM SR, in the near future. A group of teenaged schoolboys mess around in the schoolyard, checking egos and measuring each other up. Their teacher has an unexpected announcement waiting for them inside that will change their lives forever. The story takes aim not just at the government for allowing this kind of thing to happen, but also at he youngsters, who carry on with their lives oblivious to the fact that the world they ignore may directly affect them someday. Read On at Scene-Stealers.com

Often times, even when dealing with short films, it is sometimes difficult to remember that storytelling is not always the first priority. After all, film is like any other form of art and should not be held to any hard and fast rules—like plot, character development, and all the other things we associate with narrative filmmaking. Rather than being relegated to the art museum, experimental films get their day in the sun at Sundance (no pun intended) right alongside the more traditional modes of filmmaking.

Shawn Bannon’s Ignite is a three-minute film that surveys the raging intensity with which the fires in Griffith Park, Calif. burned last year by using stark, color time-lapse cinematography sped up to an alarming degree. Helicopters streak through the night sky, but are mere flashes. They look more like comets with blinding tails. Later, the ashes of the landscape are contrasted with cigarette ashes and only a brief flash, burning photo, of the people who were affected by it. Seven time-lapse cameras were used to capture the event, which is melded together with a soundtrack of crackling fire that’s all wind and clipped microphones.

“You cut my tongue, now only my heart speaks.”
- Tania Willard

Nikamowin is a fascinating 12-minute short from Director/Editor Kevin Lee Burton that asks the musical question, “What happens when you start speaking Cree?” D’arcy O’Connor is responsible for the intricate score/sound design, which is made up entirely of spoken words in the Cree language. While O’Connor’s linguistic soundscape unfolds with rhythmic cadence, Burton channels a little bit of Koyaanisqatsi, using both city and natural landscapes to illustrate the impressive sound collage. He also employs quite a bit of split screen, only he visually highlights the layers of Nikamowin’s complicated music by going horizontal—and using up to five images consecutively. The short was produced with cooperation from the Canada Council for the Arts. Read On at Scene-Stealers.com

By Michael Goldman

One of the more highly anticipated documentaries appearing this year at the Sundance Film Festival is Morgan Spurlock’s Where in the World is Osama bin Laden? The movie was largely shot by Spurlock’s small crew using primarily a Sony HDW-F900 camera system as they literally traveled the world attempting to unravel the mystery of the notorious terrorist’s whereabouts. He returned from his adventure with hundreds of hours of HD footage to sort through as he built the movie, and much of that job fell to co-editors and frequent Spurlock collaborators Julie Lombardi and Gavin Coleman. Along with co-editor Sean Frechette and two assistants, they spent months sorting their way through “pieces of a thousand-hour puzzle,” as Lombardi explains it, working primarily on four Avid Xpress Pro systems (three running with Avid Mojo acceleration systems) and a Unity server system at Spurlock’s editorial headquarters in New York. As the Sundance Festival was about to begin, Lombardi and Coleman spoke with millimeter Senior Editor Michael Goldman about the project’s challenges and their creative approach to cutting the documentary together.

To listen to the podcast interview click here.
(To download: Right Click, Save As)

Check out our entire Sundance Podcast Archive.

Today is the first day of Sundance’s 10 Shorts 10 Days, and the first short film to stream for free for a day is Director Spencer Susser’s darkly funny charmer, I Love Sarah Jane. Tomorrow there will be another short will be streaming for free, so head there now to check it out.

The zombie movie has thrived in recent years, with re-imaginings from 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead, and is still being successfully tweaked—as this Australian import shows. Shot digitally using the Thomson HD Viper Camera, I Love Sarah Jane is set in a parent-free neighborhood where the adults are either dead or undead. Without anyone to tell the kids to clean up the house, it just isn’t going to happen.

I joke, but what makes Susser’s film so effective is the matter-of-fact way that the kids deal with their bleak situation. It’s nothing special to anyone to be carrying a bow with a quiver of arrows on your back like 13-year old Jimbo does. That’s just survival. Dark clouds loom—literally—overhead as he rides his bike around a trash-strewn, smoldering street. Amidst this awful backdrop blooms a chance for love—at least in Jimbo’s head. As a bored Sarah Jane watches a newscaster on TV describe the proper way to handle undead body disposal (incineration, of course), Jimbo sits down to make his move. Read On at Scene-Stealers.com

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