Beautiful Jones//John Lord

Somehow stumbled across this teaser–currently trying to find out everything about the film: Beautiful Jones.  Funny thing is, I recognize damn near every actor in the teaser from friends’ shorts…

PostSecret Confessions

These characters are just waiting to be written.

CreativeControl.TV

On Nov 27th CreativeControl.tv will be unveiled to the public . The network founded by Chike Ozah, Coodie Simmons and Damon Dash will be a repository for premium and original web content covering music, fashion lifestyle and entertainment. One of the many series premiering on Creative Control will be SkiBeatz profiling the world famous producer Ski, the man behind such Classics as Jay-Z’s reasonable Doubt and Camp Lo’s Uptown Saturday Night. The weekly program will profile the beatsmith as he ventures into new projects with notable artists such as Jay Electronica, Curren$y, Mos Def and emerging rock group Voodoo Farm.

This is how viral content should look: slick.

Schadenfreude

[n. SHAW-den-froy-duh] Taking malicious satisfaction in another person’s troubles is schadenfreude. Even though there may be some guilt involved, this noun comes in handy when someone feels glee or gloats over another person’s suffering…

PRECIOUS:

I gots the Aids Mz RAin!  Donnobody luh me!

PAULA PATTON:

No! NO PRECIOUS!  Your baby loves you!  I LOVE YOU…

AND I’m ambiguously raced looking!

I’m still annoyed by the success of PRECIOUS, not because it has propelled the career of a talented director/producer nor because it has shown stellar results at the Box Office but rather because it continues to perpetuate depictions of black people that every other race (including black people) has become quite comfortable with.

Motivation

It’s been a tough couple of weeks–as though I’m being put through some sort of intangible test.  Thus far, I’m passing…barely.

Obstacles are necessary for success because in selling, as in all careers of importance, victory comes only after many struggles and countless defeats. Yet each struggle, each defeat, sharpens your skills and strengths, your courage and your endurance, your ability and your confidence and thus each obstacle is a comrade-in-arms forcing you to become better… or quit. Each rebuff is an opportunity to move forward; turn away from them, avoid them, and you throw away your future.

//Russian Roulette Music Video//Paparazzi

Say what you want to say about Rihanna–she has a distinct, drippingly seductive visceral style. Though i dislike the song, The video’s execution suits her aesthetic. I especially love the kaleidescope effect around the 4 minute mark (stealing it. Daniel how do we do this?)–along with the under water bullet penetrating scenes. My god this girl looks amazing.

Directed by Anthony Mandler-who has directed 10 of Rihanna’s videos. He has an amazing eye, which is no surprise considering his introduction to the world via photography. Of course he also happens to be working on a narrative feature debut…we all want to be filmmakers don’t we? ; )

________________________

Lady Gaga’s Paparazzi Video should be the ultimate study in Production Design…Mise En Scene.  It’s f*cking beautiful.

Directed by Jonas Akerlund, whose feature film directorial debut is (one of my fav drug films):

Say Grace Before Drowning Teaser/Trailer

Testing out different video hosting sites and found blip.tv to have the highest quality in “quicktime” mode, though wordpress won’t allow me to embed the highest res “.mov” version so you won’t see it here…yet.  Without further ado–the first Viral Teaser for my thesis film “SAY GRACE BEFORE DROWNING”.  I included both Vimeo and Youtube as well.  Which is the best quality to you?

Blip.tv

YoutuBe

Vimeo

Fish Tank//Andrea Arnold

Andrea Arnold

Rarely, if ever, do I stumble across a film (filmmaker) that so viscerally resonates with my own innate inclinations: enter Andrea Arnold’s sophomore feature Fish Tank.  As soon as I stumbled across the trailer, I knew this was going to be a film i would fall in love with.  I previously wrote about Ms Arnold’s aesthetic: “kitchen sink realism” “gritty socialism is her forte”.  Like her, I have no desire to shy away from reality.  Many of my friends call me a cynic.  I simply cannot escape from this life we inhabit, rather I’m hyper aware of all that goes on around me and thus my films portray this reality.

Though I’m at a very different stage of my filmmaking career, I found eerie similarities in what I’ve shot thus far in my thesis film SAY GRACE BEFORE DROWNING and FISH TANK.  We both have moments of tenderness that echo one another thrust in a jagged realism that won’t allow its viewers to look away, also we both deal with unforbidden infatuation between a damaged woman and a man whom she will never posess.  I’m ashamed to say that, although the film has recently been picked up by IFC, I was much too impatient to wait for its theatrical release (not to mention BROKE as fuck) and ended up downloading its .torrent instead.  I’m sorry Andrea.

I’ve noticed that Arnold often dismisses comparisons to other famous directors–usually because she is not familiar with their work and is quick to confess as much.  I remember screening my second year film project, African Booty Scratcher, for the NY faculty and having comparisons to Cassavettes thrust at me.  Immediately I began to delve into his entire body of work in an attempt to find myself in him…to no avail.  Filmmakers, Film Critics, Film educated viewers all tend to be comfortable placing filmmakers in neat tidy categories that coincide with the “masters”: Ken Loach, David Lynch, Cassavettes, etc and yet it’s possible for one to create a film completely devoid of any influence from these so called masters whom, for the most part, I will confess to being ignorant to.  And that’s fucking alright if you ask me.

Short film: Loo$e Change by Mykwain Gainey

The great thing about my close group of filmmaking friends is that we all have vastly different aesthetics. We’ve watched each other evolve throughout our tenure at NYU. Being 1 of 3 black people in a class of 34, I felt a familial kinship towards my two fellow blacks. Mykwain Gainey is one of the 3 and I’m pleased to present his latest short film Loose Change, shot entirely on the Canon 5D.

Trailer for SAY GRACE…

I appreciate your zeal but the SAY GRACE trailer is no where near ready; however I’ve plunged myself into the world of others’ short film trailers.  Like I’ve said before: this is my thesis film–the last film of my film school career and if all goes as planned, the last short narrative film to preclude my feature directorial debut<–all this to say that I plan to execute each step of my thesis production process as flawlessly as possible, including the cutting of SAY GRACE’s trailer.

My most immediate concern as I continue to sync sound and string together a rough cut of the entire film is the trailer.  Below are a few gems I’ve stumbled across and consequently plan to use as ideal examples for SAY GRACE.  I’d rather not delve into what criterion I’ve utilized in my subjective assessment of what makes a trailer successful.