PARK CITY, Utah--The Sundance Film Festival is all about film buzz. Word spreads quickly about the biggest tearjerkers, the most overhyped films, the pleasant surprises, and the ones mostly likely to make their way to the cineplex.
Filmmaker Ondi Timoner starts her day Monday, the day of her film's world premiere, by getting her make-up done professionally. She knows she has many photo shoots ahead.
(Credit: Michelle Meyers/CNET News)What you don't hear, however, is what it's like for the makers of such films as they anticipate showing their work to the world for the very first time. What is their range of emotions as they prepare for what could be a standing ovation or a mass exodus before the credits even roll?
Ondi Timoner, who's here competing with her documentary, We Live in Public, gave CNET News some insight into the mania of festival life for a filmmaker by allowing us to shadow her Monday, the day of her film's world premiere. We'll tell you all about that jam-packed day, but first some background on the film and Timoner.
We Live in Public documents the tumultuous life of Josh Harris, who Timoner refers to as "the greatest Internet pioneer you've never heard of." It's a sort of cautionary tale about the effect the Web is having on society.
During the 1990s dot-com boom, Harris was considered a sort of "Warhol of the Web" by creating the first Internet television network, Pseudo.com, and then an underground bunker in Manhattan where 100 people lived together on camera for 30 days before getting shut down as a millennial cult by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the New York police on New Year's Day 2000.
Harris' next experiment, which led him to a mental breakdown, was a six-month stint living with his girlfriend under 24-hour live surveillance online, long before the days of Justin TV.
Timoner had been hired by Harris to film the underground bunker project, called Quiet, and continued to follow him over the years as she was drawn by his character, even if she didn't quite understand his message. But it wasn't until spring 2006, when she started noticing people walking around oblivious to the world typing into their BlackBerrys, or posting their every thought and move on social-networking status feeds, that she realized Harris was a true visionary.
Taking a quick break from the busy schedule, Timoner checks in with her son, Joaquim, who offers a taste of his ice cream.
(Credit: Michelle Meyers/CNET News)"He said we'd be trapped in virtual boxes" and he was right, Timoner said. "It was like being shot with a lightening bolt. I had never had a clearer vision...Society and technology had to catch up to Josh's vision.
So she set to work, along with a huge team of collaborators, culling 5,000 hours of video into the film, which prominently features Internet entrepreneur Jason Calacanis and also offers a couple clips of MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe.
Timoner, 36, who's staying here in a huge mountainside house with her 5-year-old son and extended family, also competed at Sundance in 2004 with the rock 'n' roll documentary Dig!. Dig! won the Grand Jury Prize and immediately got picked up for U.S. distribution by Palm Pictures.
Now more seasoned about rights, distribution, and the potential for Web distribution, she's not even sure she'll sell her film, even though perspective buyers have already expressed interest. Of course, it depends upon the offer (no news yet as of Tuesday afternoon), but she'll do some serious weighing this time around, she said, still sorry to have given up rights with Dig! True to the theme of We Live in Public, the following are highlights from Timoner's day on the other side of the camera:
Getting ready
Some of the guests at the We Live in Public household were still in PJs at about 10 a.m. Monday, but they were mostly bright-eyed and some were already a little stressed. Timoner got showered and dressed for the many photo shoots that awaited her.
Dress for Sundance premieres runs the gamut. One of the opening night filmmakers wore a formal gown. Timoner opted for a more casual purple knit top with neckline detail, a black vest (to help hide the fact that she couldn't wear a bra with the shirt, she said), black skinny pants with a subtle brown print, and an Obama pin, which helped keep the neckline in place. All of the clothes, she said, were designed by a friend of hers.
Timoner arrives before the screening of her film and poses on the press line as flashes flicker all around.
(Credit: Michelle Meyers/CNET News)
As she got her make-up done, Timoner seemed excited and energetic. "We're going to blow people's minds today," she said, adding that she was likely living the best and most important 24 hours of her life.
And she was also reeling in the all the hype the movie had already received. Among other feedback, a writer for the The San Francisco Bay Guardian, for one, had just posted a great review: "I can't express enough how awesome this film is, or how horrifyingly revealing of where our own society has headed. You wanna talk about the film of Sundance '09? Look no further."
As a result, however, Timoner revealed, "Now I'm nervous about living up to (the hype)."
There wasn't much time to dwell, however, as the team, including Harris--donning a neutral-color shirt, khakis and his signature white Stan Smith sneakers--was already running behind schedule for a photo shoot and Sundance Channel interview downtown on Main Street. They grabbed coats and loaded into rented SUVs.
That's when it hit Timoner that she never said good-bye to her son, Joaquim, who had been hanging out with his two cousins. That was certainly worth running back in the house for.
Strike a pose
It was nonstop shoots, interviews, and meetings for Timoner, Harris and the film entourage and they kept to a tight schedule managed largely by production coordinator Cristin Mizelle. Timoner and Harris were received by everyone as true stars, striking their poses before the bright lights.
Unscripted, however, was the chit-chat en route from place to place. One particular disappointment for Timoner, was word that Twitter had gone down, and her posts, including photos, had not been updating for more than a day. Timoner is a Twitter rookie, apparently not yet wise to Twitter's bugginess. "My publicist said I had to Twitter. If the film is We Live in Public, I had to live in public."
"But I had some brilliant Twitters," she said. "Now there missing. There all stuck in Twitterland somewhere."
Another unexpected twist was running into MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe on the street, whom Timoner had interviewed for film and whom had offered support for it. DeWolfe said he was sorry he had to miss the screening, and confirmed he had heard good things about the film. He also asked Timoner about how he looked in the film. She assured him he comes off fine.
On any other a day, Timoner would be fully engaged in this panel with two other Sundance filmmakers. However on Monday, hours before her premiere, she was a little distracted.
(Credit: Michelle Meyers/CNET News)But afterward, she admitted she's a little concerned as to how he'll respond to his quote that he had never heard of Josh Harris. That was poignant, she felt, because here you have one of the biggest Web executives never having heard him. "No one had heard of him," which is what made his story that much more amazing, she said.
Her concern, of course, was that DeWolfe would feel like he should have known who Harris was. But Timoner quickly moved on.
Timoner and Harris' interview with the Sundance Channel was fun to watch because it clearly showed their relational dynamic. Harris, who spent much of the day with a cigar in hand, doesn't always agree on Timoner's view of her story, which led to a little friction on the set. Yet Harris has given Timoner his full support and access to footage.
Harris refuses, however, to actually see the film, although he planned to attend the question-and-answer session following the opening night screening. "I can't do it," he said, after the Sundance Channel interview, likening watching a movie about his life and his mental breakdown to watching a video of someone giving birth.
Besides, the movie is about who he is through Timoner's eyes, and he doesn't want to define himself that way. "I like who I am right now," he said. Harris, who watched hours on end of TV while growing up as the youngest of many siblings, now lives in Ethiopia, where he's shown in the film living relatively simple life.
The final task for Timoner before the pre-premiere parties kicked into full gear, was participating in a panel about developing compelling stories in film. She admitted it was hard to engage in the panel, with the screening just hours away.
With the film screening over, Timoner arrives at the after-premiere party we're she can relax, finally...at least until tomorrow.
(Credit: Michelle Meyers/CNET News)"On any other day I would have found that really interesting," she said. "This is one of the biggest days of my whole life," she said, walking with her sister Rachel Timoner, a rabbi, on their way to one last photo shoot at the Hollywood Life House.
Meanwhile, Timoner's crew was scrambling to come up with more tickets to give to industry insiders and others who had made last minute requests due to all the buzz.
The doors open
There's nothing more annoying or unexpected than traffic here in Park City. Just when it seemed like the weekend crowd had cleared out, the roads were completely backed up en route to We Live in Public's screening venue, which meant not only was Timoner and her crew late, so were audiences and press members.
Always the director, Timoner argued with Sundance staff to let them start the film a little late.
"You make a film for 10 years and you want some people to see it from the beginning," she said with a smile, but in a voice that showed an elevated stress level.
Appropriately, she introduced the film telling the packed room that she screeched to the finish with the film, which was only completed seven days prior, and rushed it because she feels "we're at a tipping point."
"The virtual world is starting to take over our lives," she told the audience.
The lights dimmed and Timoner settled in her seat next to mother, sister, and brother, David, who co-produced Dig!. She went along for the ride, smiling at moments and enjoying the film's music. As the movie finished, her mom's lips read, "I loved it."
Jason Calacanis and Josh Harris pose for a shot at the We Live in Public after-premiere party Monday night. Or was it Tuesday morning by then?
(Credit: Michelle Meyers/CNET News)The applause was loud and the audience was fully engaged in the question-and-answer panel, on which Calacanis also participated.
Calacanis is interviewed heavily in the film about what Harris was doing relative to the rest of the dot-co industry. He got a laugh talking about Psuedo.com and the accompanying rave-like behavior with supermodels wearing almost nothing "on the laps of nerds playing Doom."
Several audience questions were prefaced with complements, and the chatter outside the screening room seemed positive. Some audience members were impressed by the story of Harris' life, although others questioned whether he truly was a visionary or just another dot-comer who wasted away millions. Others recognized Timoner's feat in editing together 10 years worth of footage and for hitting on such a relevant message about technology in our lives.
Later that night, at the premiere party downtown, Timoner, at last with a cocktail in hand, said the feedback had been amazing and there had been lots of sales interest both from film and TV distributors.
But her smile really warmed with this line: "Someone told me it's the best documentary they've ever seen."
Just when you'd think Timoner could finally relax, she overwhelmed me with her crazed Tuesday schedule of sales meetings and press interviews, never mind the inauguration, an event she had been talking about all day.
This journalist called it a night at 1 a.m., but the We Live in Public party continued, reportedly.
Fitting given the film's name, the We Live in Public after-premiere party was streamed on the film's Web site. Here Natalie Lent, left, of ID Public Relations, Timoner, and Harris watch themselves being streamed.
(Credit: Michelle Meyers/CNET News)Click here for more information about the We Live in Public and Timoner.
Here's the trailer:
Below are two videos that I shot of Timoner at Sundance.
roundup This year, the renowned film festival is showcasing the environment, as well as artists who use technology to tell stories in new ways.
A day in the life of a Sundance filmmaker
Ondi Timoner gives CNET News a chance to see what it's like from the inside of the festival, and her film just happens to be all about the Internet.(Posted in Digital Media by Michelle Meyers)
January 21, 2009 4:00 AM PST
Finding the next Scorsese...on YouTube
One of the short films being shown to industry insiders at this year's Sundance Film Festival is the winner of a YouTube contest, Project:Direct.(Posted in Digital Media by Michelle Meyers)
January 19, 2009 9:46 PM PST
Sundance--from the comfort of your home
No need to travel to Utah--you can get a taste of Robert Redford's indie festival by downloading up to 10 short films via iTunes.(Posted in Digital Media by Michelle Meyers)
January 18, 2009 2:45 PM PST
At Sundance, Web pioneers see 'on-demand revolution'
Off-screen festival showing stars Web industry celebs--founders of Netflix, YouTube, and Hulu--envisioning a future where users control their digital content.(Posted in Digital Media by Michelle Meyers)
January 17, 2009 3:52 PM PST
MySpace CEO talks Sundance, celebrity
Over coffee at the film festival, Chris DeWolfe touts new celebrity initiatives and talks economy, MySpace Music, and more.(Posted in Digital Media by Michelle Meyers)
January 16, 2009 10:58 PM PST
Sundance opens film fest by breaking the mold
For the first time in the festival's 25 years, founder Robert Redford kicks off things with a feature-length clay animation film, Mary and Max, which innovates on many levels.(Posted in Digital Media by Michelle Meyers)
January 15, 2009 11:00 PM PST
Rose and Kutcher make a Web show
Digg founder Kevin Rose and actor-turned-dot-commer Ashton Kutcher have partnered on 24 Hours at Sundance, a live competition that will be streamed on the Web.(Posted in The Social by Caroline McCarthy)
January 14, 2009 8:30 PM PST
Sundance Film Festival, starring...the environment
Redford's indie film fest saw a huge spike in submissions for environmental documentaries. Those screening this year cover topics ranging from dirt to overfishing to no-net-impact lifestyles.(Posted in Digital Media by Michelle Meyers)
January 14, 2009 4:00 AM PST
A storied role for technology at Sundance
Festival has always showcased cinematic innovation. This year is no different, with experimental films, cutting-edge art installations, and forums about the rapidly shifting media landscape.(Posted in Digital Media by Michelle Meyers)
January 14, 2009 4:00 AM PST
Photos: At Sundance, where art, science, and film collide
The film festival's New Frontier on Main venue features media installations from artists innovating with technology to tell cinematic stories in all new ways.(Posted in Image Galleries by Michelle Meyers)
January 14, 2009 4:00 AM PST
This post was updated at 5:12 p.m. PST to fix an inconsistency in the spelling of Fede's name and clarify the filmmakers' contributions.
Blake Edwards, director, and Erin Fede, writer and actor, won a trip to the Sundance Film Festival by coming in first place in YouTube's short film contest, Project: Direct.
(Credit: Michelle Meyers/CNET News)PARK CITY, Utah--It could be one of the quickest known ascents to fame for a filmmaking team.
Four months ago, Blake Edwards and Erin Fede met as new cubiclemates at a Charlotte, N.C.-based religious TV network. Today, they're here at the Sundance Film Festival with a short film Edwards directed and Fede wrote and acted in.
They took a different path to Park City than the 96 other filmmakers screening short films at the festival. They got here via YouTube, a site some associate more with crazy cat home videos than the work of future Scorseses.
Edwards and Fede are the winners of YouTube's Project: Direct, a short film competition now in its second year, in which the prize is a trip to Sundance. The contest this year called upon filmmakers to create shorts that in some way incorporate two props that represent the most memorable films in the Sundance Film Festival's 25 years. (Edwards and Fede chose a wedding dress and a soccer ball). The films also had to incorporate the iconic red phone associated with contest sponsor Moviefone.
Project:Direct winners Erin Fede, top center, Blake Edwards, bottom left, and their team of collaborators, aka Edward's housemates.
(Credit: Michelle Meyers/CNET News)A panel of Sundance programmers narrowed down the selection to 10, and then it was up to the YouTube community to choose the winners.
Edwards and Fede's ¡Perfecto! was the grand prize winner, for which they got $2,500 in addition to the five-day stay here. Their film, which is about an international spy who finds love with a down-home country girl, is also screening at an official festival party for short filmmakers.
"It's great access for a filmmaker," said Sara Pollack, YouTube's product marketing manager for film. She added that the overall quality of submissions was better this year than last. Second place and $2,500 went to Ben Goldenberg and Jason Gossbee, of Toronto, for their film White Collar Criminals. Third place and $1,000 went to Avery Auer of Santa Monica, Calif., for her film, Good Deeds and the Damage Done. DVDs of all three films are being distributed to industry executives here.
Edwards and Fede, who both aspire to a career in film, are here along with their team of "collaborators," (aka Edward's talented housemates, who road-tripped in from Charlotte) and are excited for the chance to network with industry leaders.
Edwards said his attitude toward being here is similar to his attitude toward making the film to begin with. "We were given an opportunity and we can either do as little or as much with it as possible," he said. Making the most of opportunities as become a sort of mantra for the group, he added.
Fede actually came in second place last year with a Project:Direct film she wrote and acted in called Gone in a Flash. So when she heard about this year's contest, Fede, who works as a graphic designer, immediately went to Edwards, a video producer, to seek his partnership.
"We did it, from conception to submission, in one month," Edwards said. They tipped the hat to their collaborators and Fede appreciated Edwards' quizzing the main actors about their characters so that they would come off clearer and more developed.
"It really pushed us to understand our characters further," said Fede, who started fooling around with her dad's Beta camera at age 8.
One of the goals of the contest, Pollack said, is to discover hidden talent. And last year it succeeded in doing just that, she said. The daughter of last year's Brazilian winner, who starred in her mom's short, is now starring in one of the biggest Brazilian soap operas, Pollack said. Maybe we'll see Erin on Young and the Restless, Pollack said.
The following are the three winning shorts:
PARK CITY, Utah--Sure, you can venture out to this snowy resort town, pay for overpriced housing, squeeze into crowded shuttle buses, deal with lots of Hollywood attitude (these, of course, the glass-half-full observations), or you can do a little Sundancing from the comfort of your own home.
With access to Apple's iTunes, you get a little taste of the Sundance Film Festival's indie works by downloading up to 10 short films for free during the 10 days of the festival, which means you have until January 25.
Main Street in Park City, Utah, before the Sundance Film Festival crowds came out in full force.
(Credit: Michelle Meyers)Sundance got a record 5,600 submissions this year for its shorts program, from which 96 were chosen to screen either in one of six shorts programs or before a related feature-length film. That was a 10 percent rise in submissions from the prior year, which assures some tough competition.
"Mittens off, badges on, this year marks one of the finest selections of shorts at the Festival that we've ever had," programmer Todd Luoto said in an article on festival Web site.
The shorts made available on iTunes, with distribution and encoding services by Shorts International, were chosen "as a sampling of the festival's unique shorts filmmakers' voices," Luoto added. "Some are funny; some are sad. Some are serious. Some are just plain crazy and need no classification, and some couldn't be classified if we tried--just the way we like it."
From the comfort of my warm hotel room, I've only downloaded two of the 10 so far, Acting for the Camera and From Burger it Came. But in doing so, I can already affirm Luoto's statement about the range, with a gentle warning that they are not the kind of films you'll see in mainstream movie houses.
Here are the shorts available on iTunes (under Movies, click on the Shorts genre) and their descriptions provided by Sundance:
Acting for the Camera--An acting class. Today's scene: the orgasm from When Harry Met Sally.
Countertransference-- A comedy about an awkward woman with assertiveness problems who seeks the questionable help of a therapist.
HUG--Drew is a musician with a contract ready to sign. When Asa, his friend and manager, realizes Drew is off his meds the across-town drive to sign the contract becomes significantly more complicated.
Field Notes From Dimension X: Oasis--Captain Fred T. Rogard muses in isolation on planet Oasis.
From Burger It Came--An animated film that recounts early 1980s-era Cold War fears of a young boy in middle America. Using a variety of techniques, the visual narrative is colorfully assembled over semi-documentary audio conversations between a grown adult recounting his fears and his mother's memory of the time and her own concerns.
I Live In The Woods--A Woodsman's fast-paced journey, fueled by happiness, slaughter, and a confrontation with America's God.
Instead of Abracadabra--Tomas is a little bit too old to still be living with his parents, but his dream of becoming a magician leaves him with no other option.
James--A young man grapples with the impulses and thoughts about being gay.
Magnetic Movie--Natural magnetic fields are revealed as chaotic ever-changing geometries, as scientists from NASA's space sciences laboratory excitedly describe their discoveries.
This Way Up--Laying the dead to rest has never been so much trouble.
A still from the animated short film From Burger It Came, one of 10 Sundance Film Festival shorts available for free download on iTunes through January 25.
(Credit: Sundance handout art)
Kara Swisher, of All Things D, opens a Sundance Film Festival panel Saturday called "Where Do We Go From Here: Icons of the Digital Age."
(Credit: Michelle Meyers/CNET News)PARK CITY, Utah--As Hollywood stars drew crowds to the screening rooms here at the Sundance Film Festival, several Web media pioneers--celebrities in their own right-- also got the spotlight Saturday at a panel focused on the future of entertainment in the Digital Age.
Moderated by All Things D's Kara Swisher in her fourth such Sundance engagement, the panelists were Netflix founder and CEO Reed Hastings, YouTube CEO and co-founder Chad Hurley; and Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu, which is NBC Universal and News Corp.'s joint online video venture.
Each had a somewhat different take on how they imagine consumers in the upcoming decade will view their entertainment. But their overriding themes were one and the same: users will be in control.
Gone are the days of some TV programmer deciding what time slot consumers will view a particular show. Same goes for theater owners dictating show times. As they are already doing, consumers will seek out their own content and will play or stream it when they want it, where they want it, and on the device or their choosing. As Hastings put it, it's an "on-demand revolution."
YouTube founder and CEO Chad Hurley.
(Credit: Michelle Meyers/CNET News)"The linear broadcast model of today is going to disappear" relatively quickly, said Hurley, who later noted that distribution on mobile devices is the fastest-growing part of YouTube's business.
In full embrace of the "consumers choose" mantra, Hulu actually lets users choose the advertisements they want to watch.
The key, however, will be helping consumers "discover" content, the panelists said--"discovery" being an industry buzzword of late for both video and music aggregators and sellers.
Hastings pointed out that most Sundance films, for example "are not going to be loved by 2 million Americans," or enough to justify national distribution. So for filmmakers who are now able to distribute their work cheaply via the Web, it will be about targeting the right audience communities.
Of course, that's where social networking will continue to be important, they agreed, whether it's done through major social-networking sites like Facebook or MySpace; through social-networking functionality built into sites like Hulu, Netflix, and YouTube; or something in between (i.e. Friend Connect or Facebook Connect).
Netflix CEO and founder Reed Hastings.
(Credit: Michelle Meyers/CNET News)"We will never be as good as the world at surfacing content for the individual," Kilar said, alluding to social networking as a tool for recommending videos. However, he added, Hulu isn't "aspiring to be a social utility."
Hastings hopes the digital realm can get to a place where customers can better weed through the content that's out there. For example, right now, about two out of every three shows or films you see are just "eh," Hastings said, and one out of every three is "wow!"
"If we can collectively shift it to two out of three is "wow," he said, consumers will have a better experience and will likely take in more content.
Looking deeper into their crystal balls, the panelists envision continued improvements for users, with expanded broadband and Wi-Fi offerings, new business models that fairly compensate content makers, and distribution experiments that might one day lead to films going out on the Web and DVD at the same time as they make their theater premieres.
All of the above, however, will require companies to continually concentrate on the user experience, they agreed.
The days of living room entertainment are not likely to go away, they also agreed, with Kilar citing a statistic that more content is viewed in the living now than last year. "I don't see that going away soon." It will just be viewed in different ways, he said, perhaps via a large Internet-connected monitor.
Hulu CEO Jason Kilar.
(Credit: Michelle Meyers/CNET News)In closing, Swisher asked the panelists to reflect on their favorite gadgets and a device they'd like for the future.
Kilar, who said his favorite gadget is a Flip Mino, hopes someone will manufacture an "open" plasma TV that doesn't come with the standard "walled garden."
Hastings, whose favorite gadget is an Xbox on which he plays video games and watches movies with this son, hopes to one day see an iPhone "with good reception."
Hurley, for his part, loves the Wii and his iPhone, and looks forward to seeing a large iPod that would be a sort of big-screen media player.
reporter's notebook PARK CITY, Utah--Maybe I'm just easily impressed or I need to get out of the newsroom more often, but I was pretty excited about getting some face-to-face time with MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe Friday at the here. After all, he's a relative celebrity in the technology realm, and I had tons of questions to ask him in the 20 minutes I was allotted.
Then, however, Christie Brinkley--following the launch of her third "Got Milk" ad campaign--walked by outside the MySpace Cafe where DeWolfe and I had been sitting. Brinkley, surrounded by a media entourage and star-struck festivalgoers, offered some perspective on true celebrity and also served as an illustration for DeWolfe's explanation of why the company is here.
Sundance "is a place where cultural and creative communities come together...actors, actresses, directors, and producers," he said, adding that MySpace is much the same kind of place.
That segued nicely into a couple of the initiatives DeWolfe was pitching. First, the just-launched MySpace Celebrity, described as a global community focused on Hollywood culture and news that's meant to connect celebrities with their fans to raise awareness for special projects and causes. Right now, more than 600 celebrities are taking part, according to MySpace.
A timely such offshoot is called Presidential Pledge, spearheaded by actor Ashton Kutcher, who has a film here and is also leading a live Web show here with Digg founder Kevin Rose. Under Presidential Pledge, DeWolfe said, celebrities are encouraged to record a pledge of service for President-elect Obama. The videos, edited by Demi Moore, will be posted on MySpace Celebrity, but will also be delivered to Obama on Inauguration Day.
MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe Friday at the MySpace Cafe, a VIP venue at the Sundance Film Festival.
(Credit: Michelle Meyers/CNET News)"The pledges will live on MySpace," DeWolfe said. "The hope is it will inspire everyday users to also make a Presidential Pledge of service and upload it."
Moving on to non-celebrity business, I decided to focus on the gray economic clouds--even if we were surrounded by glorious blue skies and snow-packed mountains. DeWolfe maintained his "cautiously optimistic" economic outlook for MySpace, and touted the company's strong revenue growth in the first half of the fiscal year even as the economy was souring.
But in the last three months, financial markets have been hit "harder than ever in my life," he said, bracing himself for some "small softening" for the second half of the year.
Fox Interactive Media, the News Corp. division that encompasses MySpace, Photobucket, and other digital properties, was declared the top destination for display ads on the Web several months ago. But display ads are expected to be hit harder than other digital advertising, and DeWolfe admitted that presents a challenge for MySpace.
Luckily, he said, the company doesn't rely so heavily on the financial and auto sectors.
As for the newly launched MySpace Music and its place in the digital music marketplace, DeWolfe doesn't see it as an iTunes competitor and seemed unfazed by Apple's recent DRM-free music announcements.
"MySpace Music is much more of a social site," he said, adding that it helps people discover new music through trusted sources and shared communities. "I see iTunes and MySpace as complementary. If anything, we're driving iPod sales."
Speaking of competition, DeWolfe doesn't fear Facebook domination, even given its recent spike in users. He sees Facebook more as an "efficient messaging system" and cited recent ComScore data that showed MySpace well above Facebook in terms of numbers of unique users.
On the horizon, he says to look for a huge increase in the use of MySpace's mobile platform.
And no, even given that I'm here at Sundance, where celebrity gossip abounds, I just couldn't bring myself to ask DeWolfe about rumors of his Paris Hilton romance. Some entertainment reporter I am! Hey, at least I got this money shot of Brinkley (makes up for the bad lighting in the DeWolfe photo). And for those wondering why Brinkley's campaign launched here, the National Milk Mustache "Got milk?" campaign is a festival sponsor.
Christie Brinkley, who launched her third "Got Milk" advertising campaign Friday at Sundance, is followed outside the MySpace Cafe by a media entourage (which I join).
(Credit: Michelle Meyers/CNET News)PARK CITY, Utah--The Sundance Film Festival broke the mold--so to speak--when it kicked off Thursday night with a feature-length clay animation film, Mary and Max, which innovated on many levels.
Robert Redford opens the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, Thursday night.
(Credit: Michelle Meyers)Robert Redford's annual opening night speech, which preceded the screening, was the perfect prelude to the Australian-made film. After assuring the packed auditorium that "even when times are bad (economically and politically)...it can be good for artists," Redford assured the audience that Sundance would continue to be a showcase for work that's diverse, unique, and often full of "surprise."
And when it came to Mary and Max, all three applied. It was certainly no Nemo or Wallace and Gromit film.
Directed by Adam Elliot and produced by Melanie Coombs, Mary and Max is the tale of two unlikely pen pals: Mary, played by Toni Collette, is a lonely, chubby, 8-year-old girl living in the Melbourne suburbs, and Max, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, is a 44-year-old severely obese New Yorker with Asperger's syndrome.
The film is dark in terms of humor, content, and aesthetic. Both main characters are constantly struggling personally, death surrounds them, and even their relationship goes through tumultuous times.
But at the same time, it's also a sweet film, conveying the importance of friendship, and of accepting oneself for strengths and weaknesses.
"We all have disabilities," Elliot said in a question-and-answer session after the screening. "It's about accepting your flaws and not trying to hide behind them."
No matter how immersed you get in the characters and the storyline, it's impossible to watch the film without marveling at the impressive animation, which got zero help from computer graphics. It was 100 percent "in-camera," as Elliot explained, which meant every single shot was taken of an actual, physical object that had been manipulated. The rain was actually fishing wire; the fire was red cellophane; the water was 50 tubes of sexual lubricant, he said.
That also meant the 92-minute film took 57 weeks to shoot, working almost seven days a week.
A promo from 'Mary and Max'
"It was like making love and being stabbed to death at the same time," Elliot said about tedious filming process. "It was like watching paint dry."
The film's old-school stop-motion animation techniques were, however, helped along tremendously by modern day technology: Each frame was shot with Canon Digital SLR still image cameras, which capture raw images in a 4K motion-picture resolution. Cutting-edge software allowed the filmmakers to get instant feedback on shots. And an innovative post-production content management system was also used and designed especially for the film.
Still, what drives Mary and Max is the story, which Elliot said was based on his own "pen friend" who he has been writing for more than two decades and to whom he dedicated the film.
This is Elliot and Coombs' second film at Sundance. Their 2004 Sundance film Harvie Krumpet went on to win the Academy Award for best-animated short film. It was announced Thursday that Mary and Max will also screen at the Berlin International Film Festival in February.
Mary and Max is just the first of 118 feature-length and 96 short films that will premiere at the festival, which runs through January 25 and is celebrating its 25th anniversary.
The theme for this year's Sundance Film Festival kicking off this week is "Storytime," apropos considering stories are the heart of each and every film.
However, many of the stories at Robert Redford's 10-day indie film festival--which kicks of Thursday in Park City, Utah, and runs through January 25--are told outside the screening rooms. They're told at panels and forums, through art installations, and via online offerings--with technology often key to the plotline.
The bulk of the festival offerings for the digerati take place under New Frontier (PDF), which is a programming category featuring films that challenge conventional form; art installations at the crossroads of art technology and film; and public forums covering innovations in cinematic culture.
Feature-length New Frontier films range from the likes of Lunch Break (PDF), by Sharon Lockhart, a single tracking shot through a long corridor where workers take their lunch at a Maine shipyard, to Where is Where (PDF), a four-channel film based on an incident that took place during Algeria's struggle for independence.
The art installation, located in the New Frontier on Main venue (featured in slideshow below), also pushes new limits this year, with two works, in particular, by technologists. In We Feel Fine, for example, by programmers Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar, the installation takes sentences every few minutes from recently published blogs from around the world that include the words "I feel" or "I am feeling" and visualizes them in six different movements.
Another scientist/artist showcasing work at New Frontier is John Underkoffler, who helped out on the film Minority Report and invented that trick in which Tom Cruise wears gloves that could grab and move computer images in space. Underkoffler developed that idea into a new system for editing film that's the focus of his installation, Tamper.
"We're finding that our artists are no longer looking at technology as a sort of novelty, a 'Gee whiz, what can I do with it?' They're already fully engaged and what's emerging is highlighted at the New Frontier," said Ian Calderon, Sundance's director of digital initiatives. "This is very different from some of the primitive video art you saw in the 1970s and 80s. This is a quantum leap forward because the tools are there, the technology is there."
New Frontier's noon panels this year have also evolved to be less about specific hardware and technological advances, and more about what content creators can do with such advances, Calderon said. One panel on Sunday, for example, is all about new models and experiments in digital distribution.
"Our filmmakers are no longer waiting to be called by Hollywood," Calderon said. "They're finding like-minded audiences, they're building communities, they're self-producing their own work. They know more about viral marketing than maybe even the retail industry."
Perhaps the most star-studded panel, at least as far as the tech world is concerned, is titled "Where Do We Go From Here? Icons of the Digital Age." The Saturday panel will be moderated by Kara Swisher of All Things D and will feature Netflix's Reed Hastings, YouTube's Chad Hurley, and Hulu's Jason Kilar.
Other panels address the use of virtual reality in film and Web content for the small screen.
"Our audience wants what they want, when they want it, and they want to take it with them," Calderon said. "Schedulized programming is going to be a thing of the past."
That said, another tech-related component of the festival relates to the film shorts program, for which submissions grew 10 percent from last year to 5,632. A record 96 shorts were selected to screen at the festival, 10 of which will be available for free rental at the Sundance iTunes Store during the course of the festival.
I'll be checking out all of the above in Park City. Stay tuned for more coverage as the festival gets under way Thursday night with the premiere of Mary and Max, an animated film that also showcases technology.
Nevermind the Hollywood glitterati. Many of the films debuting at this year's Sundance Film Festival feature a more understated star known as Mother Earth, and she plays roles ranging from dramatic to mysterious to horrific.
With one film all about dirt, another about global overfishing, and another still about a family's attempt to live with no net impact on the earth, the environment is getting top billing this year at Robert Redford's indie film festival, which kicks off Thursday night in Park City, Utah, and runs through January 25.
Five out of the 32 documentaries competing at this year's festival--which saw record film submissions and strong advance ticket sales despite the U.S. recession--fall squarely in the category of environmental films. But that's just a small fraction of the number of such films submitted to compete at the festival and doesn't include two out-of-competition environmental documentaries making their world premieres.
"We turned down about 50 environmental docs this year, and some really good ones. We didn't get anywhere near that many in the previous two years combined," said David Courier, a programmer for the festival's U.S. and world documentary competition. "We've had a history of showing terrific environmental docs, but this is the year for it, for sure...It's absolutely a reflection of what's on people's minds."
Of course, one of the most famous environmental documentaries of late came straight from a Sundance festival screening room. Former Vice President Al Gore's Academy Award-winning An Inconvenient Truth premiered at the festival in 2006, no doubt increasing awareness about global warming and also fueling interest in documentary film as a medium.
"That film had so much impact," said Laura Gabbert, one of the directors of an environmental doc screening this year called No Impact Man. "It makes sense that so many documentary filmmakers would respond and really take it to the next level."
Others in recent years have included Everything's Cool, Who Killed the Electric Car (later released by Sony Pictures), and Flow: For the Love of Water. And there was also Fields of Fuel, (now shortened to just Fuel), in which director Josh Tickell tells of his travels across the country promoting alternative fuel in his biodiesel-powered "Veggie Van." Last year, Fuel won the festival's audience award for documentaries.
Fueling activism
This year, however, there are not only more green offerings, the films have a broader range of style and theme, with quite a few focusing on the world's seas. And they go beyond just sounding alarm bells.
"So many of them are proffering solutions, too. They cross the line from just observation into activism," Courier said.
A film still from The End of the Line, a documentary screening at Sundance about global overfishing.
(Credit: Sundance handout art)One such example is The End of the Line (PDF), which is based on the book of the same name by British journalist Charles Clover and shows how global overfishing, if not curtailed, is expected to mean the end of most seafood by the year 2048.
Director Rupert Murray said he felt compelled to make the film after reading Clover's book to show "how decisions that are made on land have devastating effects on the sea."
With characters working to shed light on fishing practices, Murray likened his film to a detective film noir. Around the globe, fishermen were saying they weren't catching as much, and yet the global catch numbers kept going up. "It turned out the data had been incorrect for like 12 years," Murray said.
But the telling of the story was only one component of the film's mission, Murray said. It was also always intended to illustrate the "relatively simple solutions" and to be a call for action and a kickoff for a global campaign for citizens to demand better marine policies.
And given his own conviction on the issue, Murray, who was also at Sundance in 2005 with the documentary Unknown White Male, is not too surprised by the numbers of environmental docs coming in.
"The issues of the environment are affecting more and more people in more and more serious ways," he said. "Simply, the stories are there, and they're coming thick and fast. They recognize the magnitude of their story and they have to tell it. That's how I felt."
In another prominent nod to the green movement, Sundance chose the documentary Earth Days (PDF) to be its closing night film, which means it's not in competition. Directed by Robert Stone, Earth Days is pitched as a history of the modern environmental movement as seen through the eyes of its key players.
A film still from Earth Days, a documentary closing the Sundance Film Festival that chronicles the environmental movement since the first Earth Day in 1970.
(Credit: Sundance handout art)"It's just epic in scope," Courier said. "What makes it particularly powerful is that it goes through all the big environmental movements and catastrophes since the 1970s without wagging the finger or pointing blame. It's showing how each one of these incidents collectively has impacted the planet and how we all have to do stuff to help it. It raises consciousness in such a skilled way."
The Cove (PDF) is another film that focuses on the sea, specifically about the peril of dolphins in a secret cove nestled off a small, coastal village in Japan. Directed by Louie Psihoyos, one of its main characters is Rick O'Barry, the dolphin trainer from the TV series Flipper. O'Barry leads a group of activists who reveal--using an array of covert cameras--the plight of the creatures after they are captured by the world's largest dolphin supplier.
"It's part horror film, part environmental film, but it plays like a thriller," Courier said.
A still from the film The Cove which is about the peril of dolphins, particularly in one cove off a coastal village in Japan.
(Credit: Sundance handout art) Conservation lifestyles
The festival category called Spectrum--which spotlights seven out-of-competition documentaries--features an altogether different type of green-focused film called No Impact Man (PDF). Directed by Gabbert and Justin Schein, the film follows author Colin Beavan and his family as they leave their high-consumption Manhattan lifestyles behind and try to go a year with zero impact on the environment.
Both filmmakers were having dinner with Beavan and his wife, Michelle Conlin--a Business Week writer and childhood friend of Gabbert's--when they learned about the family's ambitious plan, and they immediately recognized the documentary potential, they said.
Gabbert and Schein always viewed it as an environmental film, but one that was especially character-driven and relatable, particularly with its focus on how the year was affecting the couple's marriage (The net-impact life was Beavan's idea and his wife and daughter sort of got taken along for the ride.)
A film still from No Impact Man, which documents writer Colin Beavan and family's attempt at having no net impact on the environment for a year.
(Credit: Sundance handout art)Of course, there were many unexpected twists and turns along the way, including an article in The New York Times that triggered a media frenzy and forced the family into the public spotlight. But in the end, the message of individual and community responsibility for conservation rung clear.
"It's made me change the way I live my life," filmmaker Schein said. And it's likely to change others, especially given that two organizations will be doing public outreach in connection to the film.
Another in-competition environmental film goes by the catchy name of Dirt!: The Movie (PDF), directed by Bill Benenson and Gene Rosow and pitched as the story of the relationship between humans and dirt. It's not just how humans are destroying the earth's soil, but also about what they could be doing, Courier said.
"Pardon the pun, but that film really does cover a lot of ground," he said. "It spans the globe and you're dealing with farmers, physicists, activists, wine critics, and church leaders. And the entire third act is about what we can do."
In addition to a handful of short films focused on the environment, two other feature-length documentaries in competition include Crude (PDF), directed by Joe Berlinger, about oil spills in Ecuador by Chevron, and Big River Man, by John Maringouin, who tells the story of an endurance swimmer from Slovenia who swims rivers--the Mississippi, the Danube, and the Yangtze to date--to highlight pollution in the world.
If it's true, as they say, that independent film is a reflection of societal consciousness, then things might just be looking up for the environment.
"I think we're entering a new time where I find it quite different," said Murray, of The End of the Line. "The more trivial, more frivolous, the further away the subject matter is from the really massive problems that the world is facing, the harder I'm finding to engage with it."
A still from Dirt! The Movie, which covers the relationship between humans and soil.
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