Experimental filmmaking takes on a whole new dimension relative to the Sundance Film Festival with the world premiere of Life In A Day slated for January 27. (The 2011 Sundance Fest gets underway January 20 and runs through January 30.) A YouTube movie, Life In A Day intends to document July 24, 2010, based on user-submitted videos from around the world. The call for entries yielded some 80,000 submissions representing 192 countries, with content in 45 languages.
Feature filmmaker (The Last King of Scotland), documentarian (the Oscar-winning One Day in September) and commercial (BBC’s Radio 2, HSBC) director Kevin Macdonald helmed Life In A Day, culling from some 4,500 hours of lensed material a final movie in the 80-90 minute range. Executive producing the project is director Ridley Scott, with his and brother Tony Scott’s feature/TV company Scott Free Productions producing the film in partnership with YouTube. Macdonald along with 26 of the filmmakers (dubbed as co-directors) whose work is featured in Life In A Day will appear in a panel discussion immediately following the screening. The Sundance premiere will be streamed live simultaneously on YouTube. For those who miss the live presentation, the film will be rebroadcast on youtube.com/lifeinaday on January 28 at 7 p.m. and subtitled in 25 languages. Plans call for the film to be distributed to select theaters, on demand, and placed online later in the year.
In an interview with SHOOT back in October when he was in the cutting room for Life In A Day, Macdonald said he was finding the experience uplifting. Based on what he saw at that point of prospective footage for the movie, the director shared, “You get an optimistic and reassuring sense that people care, that many are really fundamentally interested in the same things–Earth, love, death, family, food, simple honest joys. There’s been a huge variety of parties, celebrations, family. Some of it is shot beautifully on 5D camera, some on film, some amateurish stuff. But the texture of all this work combined is beautiful and interesting.”
Ridley Scott said, “I am delighted that we’re bringing together contributors from all over the globe in such a unique way. I believe Life In A Day will inspire more people to pick up a camera and tell their stories.”
Both Macdonald and the Scotts have commercialmaking ties; the Scott brothers of course maintain RSA Films, while Macdonald is repped stateside for commercials and branded content by Chelsea, and in the U.K. by Rogue Films.
Lineup
The filmmakers are just part of a lineup of artisans with work at Sundance who at the same time keep a creative foot in the advertising/branded content arena. Screening at Sundance’s Spotlight showcase, for example, is Submarine, directed and written by Richard Ayoade who is handled by Moxie Pictures for spot and branded content in the U.S. and U.K. Submarine is told from the perspective of Oliver Tate, a witty, endearingly odd 15-year-old lad who is coming to grips with a most confusing world, which includes the imminent divorce of his parents as well as his first romantic relationship.
Moxie also handles director Kevin Smith whose feature Red State is premiering at Sundance. The film introduces us to a group of misfits who encounter extreme fundamentalism in Middle America.
Also at Sundance will be I Melt With You, directed by Mark Pellington whose spot home is Crossroads. The film delves into four friends who have had annual reunions over 25 years; an unexpected turn of events causes them at their latest get-together to examine choices they’ve made, spurring a realization that what they said they would do with their lives is quite different from what they have done.
Another Festival premiere is My Idiot Brother directed by Jesse Peretz who helms commercials via RSA. The movie tells the tale of Ned, a man who served prison time after being conned into selling marijuana. His return to society has him moving in successively with each of his three sisters. Their interactions bring the family to the cusp of chaos and ultimately the brink of clarity.
One of 16 films selected from 1,102 submissions in the U.S. Dramatic Competition is Here directed by Braden King whose commercials home is Washington Square Films. Here centers on the complex relationship between an Armenian photographer and an American cartographer as they are on assignment to create a new more accurate satellite survey of Armenia.
Washington Square Films has two other films premiering: the George Ratliff-directed Salvation Boulevard, the story of an evangelical preacher who frames an ex-hippie for a crime; and the JC Chandor-helmed Margin Call about a dramatic 24-hour period during the collapse of a major Wall Street firm. (Margin Call was produced by Washington Square Films.)
Sundance’s U.S. Documentary Competition includes How to Die in Oregon, directed by Peter D. Richardson whose spotmaking endeavors span such clients as Nike, Microsoft and Procter & Gamble. Richardson is on the commercial roster of Food Chain Films in Portland. How to Die in Oregon tells the stories of terminally ill Oregonians as they decide whether and when to end their lives under the state’s Death With Dignity Law.
Meanwhile in the World Cinema Documentary Competition is Project Nim directed by James Marsh, whose Man On Wire earned him an Oscar as well as the Jury Prize and Audience Award at the ’08 Sundance Fest. The editor on both Project Nim and Man On Wire is Jinx Godfrey who cuts commercials via Union Editorial.
Documentary premieres at Sundance include Magic Trip, directed by Alex Gibney and Alison Ellwood. The film centers on a cross-country, LSD-induced road trip to the 1964 New York World’s Fair made and filmed by Ken Kesey and his band of merry pranksters. Forty-plus years later, Oscar winning documentarian Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side) and co-director Ellwood use that footage, audio recordings and photographs to create an immersive experience of the legendary sojourn. (Gibney’s commercialmaking roost is Chelsea.)
Another documentary at Sundance is The Interrupters, the title referring to ex-gang members who are now protecting their communities from violence. Director is Steve James, one of the documentarians repped for commercials by Nonfiction Unlimited.
Like the aforementioned editor Godfrey, other post artisans with spot ties contributed to Sundance entries. For example Company 3‘s Siggy Ferstl and Alex Bickel served as DI colorists, respectively, on Circumstance and Sound of My Voice. The latter, directed by Zal Batmanglij, tells the story of a couple who infiltrates a Los Angeles-area cult. Circumstance, helmed by Marayam Keshavarz, depicts and explores sexual rebellion within a contemporary Iranian family.
Shorts
Sundance’s 2011 Short Film Program consists of 81 shorts selected from 6,467 submissions. Among the directors with ad affiliations and experience who have shorts at Sundance are:
o Matt Piedmont of PRETTYBIRD, with the short Brick Novax, the title role being that of the coolest guy in the history of the world. Director Piedmont, a former writer/producer on Saturday Night Live, was earlier at DDB Chicago as executive producer of the short-lived yet ambitious bud.TV initiative. Piedmont directed several series for bud.tv. Brick Novax has an original soundtrack comprised of tunes co-written by Piedmont and a coterie of talent–Andrew Felteinstein, John Nau and Brian Chapman–at Beacon Street Studios, a music/sound house active in commercials. (All tracks were arranged and performed by Beacon Street, except for the end credits song “I Found A Reason” by the Velvet Underground.)
o Tim Heidecker and Eric Warheim, also of PRETTYBIRD, who directed and served as screenwriters on The Terrys, about two down-and-out lovers who conceive a child in a fit of drug-induced passion. It turns out this special child teaches the two adults about love.
o Carter Smith of aWHITELABELproduct with the short Yearbook centered on strange doings at Rockdale high school.
o Jeremy Konner of Partizan with the short The Majestic Plastic Bag, showing the migration of a bag to its final destination, the great Pacific Garbage Patch.
o Jonas Odell of FilmTecknarna whose Sundance short is Tussilago, an animated documentary about a terrorist episode in Stockholm in the 1970s.
Oscar Nominees Delve Into The Art Of Editing At ACE Session
You couldn’t miss Sean Baker at this past Sunday’s Oscar ceremony where he won for Best Picture, Directing, Original Screenplay and Editing on the strength of Anora. However, earlier that weekend he was in transit from the Cesar Awards in Paris and thus couldn’t attend the American Cinema Editors (ACE) 25th annual panel of Academy Award-nominated film editors held at the Regal LA Live Auditorium on Saturday (3/1) in Los Angeles. While the eventual Oscar winner in the editing category was missed by those who turned out for the ACE “Invisible Art, Visible Artists” session, three of Baker’s fellow nominees were on hand--Dávid Jancsó, HSE for The Brutalist; Nick Emerson for Conclave; and Myron Kerstein, ACE for Wicked. Additionally, Juliette Welfling, who couldn’t appear in person due to the Cesar Awards, was present via an earlier recorded video interview to discuss her work on Emilia Pérez. The interview was conducted by ACE president and editor Sabrina Plisco, ACE who also moderated the live panel discussion. Kerstein said that he was the beneficiary of brilliant and generous collaborators, citing, among others, director Jon M. Chu, cinematographer Alice Brooks, and visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman. The editor added it always helps to have stellar acting performances, noting that hearing Cynthia Erivo, for example, sing live was a revelation. Kerstein recalled meeting Chu some eight years ago on a “blind Skype date” and it was an instant “bromance”--which began on Crazy Rich Asians, and then continued on such projects as the streaming series Home Before Dark and the feature In The Heights. Kerstein observed that Chu is expert in providing collaborators with... Read More