In consideration: the unexpected costs of independent filmmaking

Some 2010 festivals recently started taking submissions, so I did a few more rounds. New additions in bold.

• Austin
  
• BendFilm (Oregon)
  
• Big Bear Lake (California)
  
• Charlotte
  
• Chicago International
  
• Chicago Underground
  
• First Take (Georgia)
  
• Landlocked (Iowa)
  
• Maine
  
• Midwest Independent (Chicago)
  
• New York
  
• Rhode Island
  
• Sacramento
  
• Sausalito
  
• Slamdance (Utah)
  
• Stony Brook (New York)
  
• Sundance (Utah)
  
• Toronto

Also, the tally came down to this:

• 5 submissions (NY was free, shockingly): $172.66
  
• First-class mail shipping (e.g. the cheapest): $8.99
  
• Estimated cost of blank DVDs and cases: $8
  
• Total: $193.65

And, of course, I could calculate the cost of the other fests, but why bother? To shoot, Transmissions cost around $150. Today's online submissions and postage cost more than that.

Just a few more 2010 fests that I'll enter when they come around: Ann Arbor, Minneapolis, SXSW, and New Directors/New Films (New York). By that point, I wouldn't mind spending gobs of money traveling to some festivals instead of shipping off money to get burnt.

Long-time coming: Last Year At Marienbad

Barely sixteen years old, I had a Netflix subscription and very little idea what to do with it. I then decided to work through a variety of lists: Sight & Sounds' once-per-decade listing of Best Ever by critics and filmmakers alike (that always, rightfully, crowns Citizen Kane); the somewhat-whitewashed AFI Top 100 (which now seems to change every year); IMDB's atrocious Top 250 as voted by sweaty, unwashed nerds eating Doritos while blogging from their mom's basement; and the growing collection of Roger Ebert's self-proclaimed "Great Movies."

The latter came in a hardcover book, and each time I fulfilled an entry, I put a check next to it in the table of contexts. Probably after a mere summer, I had most everything checked off. That is, anything semi-obscure enough that Netflix would stock.

One film stuck with me, though, that wasn't available on DVD until yesterday: Alan Resnais's Last Year At Marienbad.

Netflix has been a cocktease and, while eventually stocking the DVD in the dark annals of my hundreds-long queue, it contained the doom-portent of "Very Long Wait," for, well, a very long wait. And then I got an e-mail saying it had been removed from the queue, since it, apparently, disappeared from the face of the earth.

So imagine my surprise when the good pals at Criterion decided it to give their star treatment and resissue it on crisp DVD. So excited was I by this development that it shot to the top of my queue, even beyond many films I sort of know I would like.

So Marienbad I deliberately kept as a shot in the dark. I didn't read any critique of the film, and certainly nothing scholarly. I picked up stray bits of how it was one of them Europa-een capital-A films d'Art. Something that I usually wholeheartedly avoid (see also: every Dogma '95 films and everything made by Kevin Smith, Michael Bay, et. al.)

But the film taunted me. If nothing else, it's one of the three or so films I haven't checked off the table of contents on Ebert's Great Movies Vol. I tome. I just had to watch it, you know? For the sake of completion, if nothing else. And I'm a completest.

So imagine my total lack of surprise that the film was pretty much exactly as expected. Absolutely gorgeous, lush settings and surprisingly-smooth cinematography (considering it was made in '62, and all dollies and crane shots have barely any jiggles) do absolutely nothing for the non-narrative, the non-story, the non-characters, and the general intellect-stoking that I'm sure was fashionable in the 60's but, now, is just fucking annoying.

Take, for instance, the overtly theatrical elements, which I'm damn sure are 100% intentional: most background characters instructed to make absolutely no movement while the two leads wander through a labyrinthine Euro-palace and just talk, talk, talk about absolutely nothing and sometimes dare enough to raise an eyebrow to suggest any emotion whatsoever.

I guess I should've taken enough notes from Resnais's Hirsoshima, mon amour, which at least has the decency to de-linear the story to give some semblance of interest. Call me a Dumb American or whatever, but I think the times of these films is long past.

Sidenote: Did Netflix just get rid of the stars/score system or is it a temporary glitch? Doesn't really matters, since I give everything either two or three stars, usually, and all my recommendations land between that narrow range.

Mux024

Doing things a bit differently this time. I'm pretty anal about between-track transitions, so I thought I'd pull a JDK Radio and smush it all together. I also accidentally stumbled upon some beat-matching near the end, so hang it there for an awesome crossfade.

Also, download Mux024 via drop.io.

The tracks:
1. Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
2. Hole - Violet
3. Wavves - So Bored
4. The Undertones - Teenage Kicks
5. Dinosaur Jr. - I Want You To Know
6. The Chills - Pink Frost
7. Sonic Youth - Antenna
8. Dirty Projectors - Stillness Is The Move
9. Massive Attack - Teardrop
10. Smog - Teenage Spaceship

In brief: Waltz With Bashir

A gorgeously-animated film that is bogged down by a visual pace that looks like everything is projected half speed, like the story is trying to chug forward through a tank of molasses.

It also gives no indication of what the film actually is if you're watching it without knowing beforehand. It presents no thesis. It turns out to be little more than a animated documentary with flashback re-enactments. The documentary devolves from something that seems like a narrative (about a man who, because of some form of PTSD, has blocked out all memory of a war) into a group of seemingly-random talking heads. It doesn't help that the interviewees are all middle-aged men who rarely stray from a droning monotone when rambling through their vignetted war stories.

Also, this film assumes prior knowledge of Israeli military operations in Beirut in the 80s and the ethnic complications surrounding it. I don't know anything about that war; I was lost most of the way through.

Second spin: Dirty Projectors' Bitte Orca

Stream the whole album at Lala

The post title is misleading. I've been listening to the Dirty Projectors' Bitte Orca on Lala streams, my PC iTunes, my Mac iTunes, and on my iPod while falling asleep or waking up in the middle of the night, so the playcount isn't quite a second spin, but a third or fourth or tenth spin.

But I still can't decide whether the hell I like it or not.

Sure, once I mentally-verbally pinned it down, I find it rather palatable as a sort of blend of the sugar Afro-pop of Vampire Weekend versus the schizo-anything-can-happen turns of Fiery Furnaces, plus a whole lot of open sound space that gives it almost a danceable quality. So, by those criteria, I should like it. Love it, even.

What I'm really coming to grips with, I suppose, is my first "grower" of the year. Last year it was No Age, which I initially fucking hated but which I now place up on some pedestal. The year before was The National's Boxer, which, while I didn't first hate, I didn't yet have the gall to call it one of my favorite albums ever.

I first spun Bitte Orca on a Lala stream via Pitchfork's sensationalist-by-9.2-score-alone review, which, for any insecure casual-hipster like myself, demands a listen. I sort of left it drift in the background while I tidied up my internet rounds. And then Tiny Mix Tapes (usually a hype-check for post-release reviews that surgically extract the score-inflated buzz Pitchfork is way too prone toward [see: P4K v. TMT re: Wavves' Wavvves and The Pains of Being Pure At Heart's self-titled]) gave it its blessing. And then, after letting it sit for a long time as my internet-background music, one of the somewhat-reputable AV Club's staffers put it on his short-list for possible best music of the year, thus far.

So now I'm in a really weird place. Most of all, the album is simply too slow to play during my usual album-playing times, which are, in order of weekly time consumed:

1) Vacuuming
2) Working out
3) Washing dishes
4) Mowing the lawn
5) Driving

--and, as those activities suggest, I need something a bit high-octane to take me through the dreariness of said activities. (I've been meaning to do a post on best lawn-mowing albums, but it'd really just be a quick list of Death From Above 1979's You're A Woman, I'm A Machine, Jay Reatard's Blood Visions + assorted singles, and Japandroids' Post-Nothing.)

And, as mentioned prior, my casual-hipster insecurity wants - nay, craves - the sort of hipster-barometer websites to give said album really high marks so that it forces many listens. That is, after all, how I learned to appreciate No Age, and how I've begrudgingly accepted Animal Collective's MPP as really good.

In typing this post, I've been background-listening to the album and, my god, it's already over. I barely even noticed. Maybe that's more telling about the album than any of its individual qualities.

In brief: Das Experiment

Pretty ridiculous that the German film Das Experiment opens with text that says it's not based on any true events whatsoever when, in fact, it completely plagiarizes its entire premise from the infamous Stanford prison experiment of 1971.

Despite this (and also borrowing elements of the experiment exactly, for those who are, somehow, familiar with both), it manages to push itself past the ridiculosity of the experiment and go even further. While the actual Stanford experiment was canceled a mere six days out of the planned fourteen, the film continues past that six-day mark and truly delves into What Might've Happened.

It gets a bit heavy - and contains an out-of-place romance and a random subplot that doesn't resolve itself (dealing with the reporter) - but it makes for great entertainment without getting too cerebral. And while there's a welcome grey-shaded morality presented in the film, there's one character portrayed as an obvious villain that tips it toward the absurd.

EDIT: There's an American remake in the making. I don't know if it's directly based off the actual Stanford experiment, Das Experiment, or the semi-fictional novel Black Box. Either way, there's another true-life event I can nix off my possibly-adapt-into-a-film list.

JDK Radio 003: Beats

Discovering that beat-matching is something I don't excel at, but I've been listening to a lot of hip-hop/rap/whatever-you-want-to-call-it lately.

Late to the party: The PS22 Chorus sings "Don't Stop Believing"

In consideration: It's easy to be bitter / The Midwest Gazzette

• Austin
  
• BendFilm (Oregon)
  
• Big Bear Lake (California)
  
• Charlotte
  
• Chicago International
  
• Chicago Underground
  
• Landlocked (Iowa)
  
• Maine
  
• Rhode Island
  
• Sacramento
  
• Sausalito
  
• Stony Brook (New York)
  
• Toronto

Only a few days ago I checked my Withoutabox page and saw that the Sacramento Film & Music Festival had a notification deadline of June 8, e.g. ten days ago. On a whim, I checked the page today, only to see the nice green typeface (the same as next to my Maine rejection) display a proud NOT ACCEPTED.

Not even an e-mail. Maybe I'll get a letter today!

So for those keeping track (e.g. the computer overseeing my Capital One card's outstanding balance for about $600 in festival submission fees and probably about $50 in shipping), my two rejections are the equivalent of lighting $85 on fire. And trust me, I would've gotten much more satisfaction if I could've literally lit the money on fire. Preferably, I'd light $75 on fire to light a $10 cigar.

(Stop hear if you don't want to read my tantrum.)

Now, of course, is time to second-guess myself, and indulge in the lifelong feeling that none of this is real and I'm just in a vat of jelly on an alien mothership, my brain hardwired into a fever-dream hallucination. So: Am I doing something totally wrong here? Did I set my aim too high with what I assumed were low-profile festivals? That is, compared to the behemoths like Cannes and Sundance. Does Transmissions not suck but just wouldn't play well at all at a festival? Or maybe it does suck? Or it's so fucking brilliant that all these assholes can't comprehend it and are going to recant and say it's a masterpiece ten years from now when I'm amassing an awards-pile for The Chronicle?

Whatever. I don't have time for this. I'm revising my script to shoot next year, and fuck anyone who thinks it's going nowhere.

---

In unrelated positive news, I don't think I've publicly mentioned that, for the first time in the history of geologic time, I will be published in a publication. I will be featured in tastemaker Michael Squeo's Midwest Gazzette (sic), and my name is clearly legible on this page of featured contributors. I suppose I've been hesitant to mention this, since I literally submitted eight different pieces under a variety of pseudonyms as a result of caffeine abuse and a slight manic episode, and I've yet to receive the mag to see which submission is included. If it's under a non-pen name, though, I can assume it's fairly mild.

The fundamental flaw in: Pollock / More ruminations on: The New World (Extended Edition)

Pollock's painting is seen as so innovative for the time, yet in the film, the scenes of Pollock's discovery of "action painting" and his successive work are scored via traditional film scoring. It undermines the whole process of his innovation by tethering it to cinematic tradition.

I also re-watched the 172-minute cut of The New World last night, and I'm still conflicted over whether I prefer that or the theatrical cut. Some sequences are a bit drawn out in the extended cut (namely, Smith's going-upriver journey at the head of the film, which slows the pace when some briskness is needed), and the overall added length draws more attention to the fact that the whole film is almost entirely non-linear. (I finally pinned down the film that comes near to it in that regard: Australian outback vision-quest Walkabout.)

There are a scant number of completely-new sequences not seen in the theatrical cut that add to the experience of the Extended Ed. One is a non-verbal exchange between Capt. Smith and one of The Naturals when Smith is taken captive, and the man shows Smith some stuff about roasting corn and whatever. (It's more affecting than my lukewarm association, trust me.) The other is a dialog between Rolfe, Capt. Newport, and "The Governor" about Rolfe's intentions to marry Pocahontas, and how he has to write a document explaining that it's simply an act to bring about the taming of the Native Americans and not about romantic love.

What's most conflicting, though, is trying to determine what is Terrance Malick's preferred cut. There was a 150-minute-or-so cut he put into limited release at the year-end of 2005 to qualify for awards, and then it was almost immediately withdrawn (by Malick, supposedly) and re-cut into the theatrical version that first released on DVD. Apparently, there's an Italian DVD that contains both the "long" and "short" versions (omitting the 172-minute cut). I might have to track it down and since, well, Malick probably won't surface for an interview for the rest of his life, it'll be up to me to determine which I prefer.

Still, whenever I find myself trying to find faults in the film (and there are plenty for the haters to pick apart), I can't help but getting ultimately hypnotized once Pocahontas moves out to the fields to work with Rolfe. There, the film becomes so immersed in itself (and sheds some of the indulgent non-linearity) and radiates an unshakable confidence that I can't help but surrender myself to it.

Speaking of Malick and extended editions, I'm probably the only one jonesin' for the semi-rumored, few-witnessed six-hour cut of The Thin Red Line that was first shown at the Directors Guild of America. Who knows if Malick liked it, or if it was just a cut that still included the giant smattering of scenes that included the likes of Mickey Rourke, Viggo Mortensen, Lukas Haas, and a bunch of other noticeable actors who ended up getting cut entirely from the film. Unfortunately, since that was 1998, my guess is that the cutting-room material is stacked up in some massive film-can vault, and that any restoration or reconstruction would be far too cost-prohibitive to do. Then again, if it was shown, a print, presumably, exists. After all, I've seen the massively-bloated cut of Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate and, while it definitely could have over an hour of it cut [to make a much, much stronger film], I'm glad I saw the giant, semi-beautiful mess of it all.

Transmissions, Project 2010, and somewhere in between

The hard facts and ruminations aren't too comforting: two film festival rejections out of thirteen submissions, though, honestly, I never researched any sort of probability of getting into certain festivals; a lingering debt of about $600+ from submission fees that, if I get into nothing, had the equivalent of simply lighting the money on fire; a sort of elitist high-ground in which I can mentally justify that film festivals have absolutely nothing to do with Transmissions, that festivals were never in my vocabulary during any phase of the production, that, goddamn them all, it's a film that had a lot of thought put into it and fuck everyone who dismisses it; a part-part-time job on the cusp of extinction coupled with a phobia about getting a job-job that would siphon all my free time that would better be spent working on my script for my pie-in-the-sky 2010 project; drinking coffee and biting my fingernails and finding it increasingly-difficult to sleep when festival notification deadlines approach; that this is some all-or-nothing, all-or-never self-ultimatum that all the gears set in motion have to stay in motion, despite the fact that Transmissions was a one-man experiment that does not give me any experience whatsoever in handling a crew, which are definitely the requirements of any future projects that lead toward my inevitable attempts at making the behemoth Chronicle into anything viewable outside that little, strained eye somewhere in my mind; that I can find a way to medically relax during all this, since two of my doctors are pretty certain that I contracted a mysterious-origin mononucleosis from simply exhausting myself to the point of immune-system compromise sometime after finishing Transmissions and heading full-tilt into simultaneously writing four screenplays for possible 2010 production; that I can be a filmmaker for more than just a period of the year-long bubble surrounding Transmissions.

I try to counter this with some simple plans that, if nothing else, are time-biding. I'm trying to get some materials in order for a Minnesota Artists' Initiative Grant (that I was rejected for when I applied two years ago) that could pay out a maximum of $6000 for whatever wankery I want to do, given I write a grant proposal that justifies said wankery. (Seriously, looking at the grant-recipients of the year I lost, 99% of it was high-Art-with-a-capital-A that is beyond the point of pretention-parody.) Right now my materials for submission will be clips (nine minutes maximum) of Transmissions and my script for my 2010 project. Now I'm on the razor's-edge of deciding that I'd use the grant money to either A) attend film festivals if Transmissions get into any and magically make the connections required to make a new project, or B) shoot camera tests with the Red camera for said 2010 project. So, if A can't happen, I'll go for B, which isn't a strong case but is a case, given that, hell, the only rental place around that doles out Red charges $600/day, and I'll spend at least two of those days figuring out how the hell to operate a non-GL2, non-16mm camera and, not long afterward, grappling with the shit non-workflow workflow with Redcode files.

And almost as a joke (but not a joke at all), I'm going to see what is required of applying for a Guggenheim fellowship and, shit, why not try? I find myself deserving of large quantities of art-for-artists money.

Until then - well, this is a mental approximation of all it. Trying to do a little bit every day to try to keep sane and, more important, disciplined.

JDK Radio 002: The National

Some cuts from pre-Alligator albums, live tracks, and random rarities by The National.

Repeat: Catch Me If You Can

An almost textbook-perfect case of when no one can say No to a director. Because, christ, who can get up the nerve to say, "Hey Spielberg, why don't you completely cut Jennifer Garner's scene(s), the whole hiring-flight-attendants-to-sneak-through-the-airport part, and Tom Hanks at the laundromat and, you know, all the chaff that keeps this over two hours?" Certainly not Michael Kahn, faithful editor, who I think was still using a KEM to cut in 2002.

Story-wise, this should clip along, and it has no business of having a runtime of about two-and-a-half hours.

Then again, consider the relative merits of the film compared to - god forbid I mention this (sorry, Steve) - The Terminal*. Because this is a masterpiece compared to that.

*I think this is the first time The Terminal has been publicly mentioned and/or even mentally considered since the year 2004.

JDK Plays Crystal Castles

Re-listening to Crystal Castles + boredom + GarageBand + bitcrusher + no Auto-Tune + heavily-distorted electric guitar (yes, it is a guitar and it took me like two hours to remember how to play it) = my first cover song in ages.

• Download: JDK - Vanished (Crystal Castles)

JDK Radio 001: Classic Rock

I hate it when songs fade out and screw with a playlist. So I took matters into my own hands:

But don't expect this to happen again or anything. Sometimes I just like to stream while online instead of downloading and junking up my iTunes library.

One sentence on: The Hit

Where Quentin Tarantino stole 90% of the style for his first two movies.

Mux023: June 2009

Download via drop.io. The tracks:

1. Jay Reatard - It Ain't Gonna Save Me
2. Franz Ferdinand - What She Came For
3. Green Day - Basket Case
4. Radiohead - Subterranean Homesick Alien
5. Beach House - Gila
6. Sunset Rubdown - Apollo and the Buffalo and Anna Anna Anna Oh!
7. Swan Lake - Heartswarm
8. The Arcade Fire - Une Annee Sans Lumiere
9. Japandroids - Sovereignty
10. Mission of Burma - That's When I Reach For My Revolver
11. Tortoise - Chateroak Foundation

Second spin: Born Ruffians' Red, Yellow & Blue

Steam via Lala

I like a good 45-minute-ish album. I don't have any of them fancy iPod docks in my car, so I'm stuck with the best of early 00's tech: burned CD-Rs. And since I've fancied myself as an Album Guy instead of a Songs Guy, I like a drive to have a musical accompaniment from a single band.

So most of my drives are 45-minute affairs round-trip, which is time enough for an album. My most recent excursion had me digging through my recently-rearranged CD wallet. I didn't get too far before I stopped on a disc I had passingly enjoyed last year but had never given too much ear service.

The unstoppable output of modern music leaves the vast majority of good-to-great works as woefully unappreciated, and Born Ruffians' debut LP Red, Yellow & Blue is no exception. (My best of 2008 list, which is still decently accurate, excludes said album.) I gave it a second spin on a drive and came away with an appreciation that hadn't been found outside of my repeat-listening of "Kurt Vonnegut."

First off, the album leads with a bit of misdirection. Opener "Red, Yellow & Blue" sets up the B-side of the album nicely, with a preview of the softer, more wistful balladry, along with some lyricism that anchors Born Ruffians on the fine line between honesty and naivete.

Then there's the one-two punch of "Barnacle Goose" and "Hummingbird," which simply take off from the first few measures and don't stop. This is the band at its energetic height: all guys sing-shouting, with a surprisingly filled-out composition given that they're a trio.

"I Need A Life" is indicative of a few songs on the album. Just thinking about the song, it's easy to forget about the rather meandering parts leading up to the massive "I need a life! I never had one!" blow-up at the end. But that's the beauty of it; a good song with an enormous payoff. The same can be said of penultimate track "Kurt Vonnegut," which, poignant lyrics aside, drifts along on a hammering percussion track until the beautiful ending harmony of "Won't you come outside, love? Won't you come outside?" That track earned a listing on my best tracks of 2008 mix for good reason.

Post-"I Need A Life," things get slowed considerably. Those inundated by the sugar-high of "Barnacle Goose" and "Hummingbird" might want to stick to the singles, but there are buckets of aw-shucks charm in "Little Garcon," "Hedonistic Me," "In A Mirror," and the ramshackle closer "Red Elephant."

And then there's "Foxes Mate For Life." At 4 minutes, 30 seconds, it clocks in as one of the album's longer tracks, but it extends a life of its own with a drawn-out, instrumental intro. Past that, though, are lyrics you can expect from the song's title. I imagine it will find good use as the second-to-last track on every mix you'll ever make for a prospective girlfriend.

(That last sentence was the original, sole reason for writing this.)