https://independent-magazine.org/1999/12/01/palm-your-hand/
Obsessed with Independent Film Since 1976
Obsessed with Independent Film Since 1976
Two new cameras, both due out in the spring of 2000, will undoubtedly raise the bar in the ongoing debate between the merits of film’s superior image quality and video’s cost-effective convenience. A new Super 16 camera, the A-Minima, due for release by French camera manufacturer Aaton, combines the lightweight portability of the camcorder with… Read more »
The Bit Screen www.thebitscreen.com Launched: July 1998 Plug-ins required: RealPlayer Audience (per month): 100,000 page views, download totals unavailable. Contact: Druid Media, Box 343, Narberth, PA 19072; (610) 664-6945; info@druidmedia .com "It’s really not about distributing films over the Internet," says Bit Screen creator Nora Barry. "To me, it’s a completely new art form." On-line… Read more »
For all of CPB’s lofty intentions, the ultimate shape of public television in the digital age will be fashioned by those who actually ply the trade – the artists and producers. Here is a short list of five CPB-funded projects that provides a peek at the kind of work that’s headed our way. Local News… Read more »
www.nogatekeepers.org Set up to counter cable companies’ self-appointed role as future gatekeepers of the Internet, nogatekeepers.org is an information, educational, and lobbying site which takes the public access battle into the on-line arena. The site’s goal is to keep broadband networks accessible in order to maintain competition and diversity in the Internet access market. The… Read more »
Provided we all make it through Y2K safely, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has another milestone in mind "2K3" denoting the final, April 2003 deadline for all of the nation’s 1600 television stations to be broadcasting in digital. Among those stations making the mighty analog-to-digital conversion are some 350 public television stations, which hope to… Read more »
Winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance for his hugely entertaining documentary American Movie doesn’t seem to have changed Chris Smith–or his reputation as a Very Nice Guy From the Midwest. Case in point: Smith’s FedEx package to this Milwaukee-bound interviewer includes a hand-drawn map on an index card marking "Lake Michigan" (complete with squiggly… Read more »
www.kilima.com/usa.html Kilima.com, an online world of news, film, art, music and literature from nine countries, was the first website to broadcast the audio of documentary films in their entirety using RealAudio. This website, begun in 1996, is a must-see for anyone interested in independent documentary filmmaking. The U.S. page features a ton of links. There… Read more »
The Celebration (1998), 105 min., color Director: Thomas Vinterberg [www.dogme95.dk] Original Format: Mini DV (PAL) Transferred to: 35mm Synopsis: The story of a family celebration which explores the explosions that occur when family tensions reach critical mass. Camera used: Sony PC 7 (palm-sized mini DV camera; predecessor to the PC10 and PC1). Sound: Mixed to… Read more »
John Sayles’ Men with Guns IFC’s credit: "A presentation of the Independent Film Channel and the Anarchists Convention." Prior relationship: "We’d shown a lot of John’s movies over time," says Sehring. "And I love to tell the story that I first spotted my wife when I was in conversation with John 15 years ago at… Read more »
We’re kind of a garage band of filmmaking," says Dan Myrick of his collaborators, an Orlando, Florida-based film collective called Haxan Films. Low-fi and revved up with basement tape ingenuity, Haxan cranked it to eleven in their debut film as a group, a thoroughly spooky mock-documentary-cum-horror film called The Blair Witch Project. The film premiered… Read more »