Seattle True Indepedent Film Festival 2009
Hope Art will be screening at the Seattle True Independent Film Festival on Friday June 5, at 6:15 along with 5 other short films, at the Jewel Box Theater in Belltown. Hope Art is the only Non-Fiction piece in the showing and I can't decide if that's a good thing or not. On the one hand it'll stand out since it's the only doc, but that also means it'll be showing to a room full of people who many not be that in to docs. But I'm still really excited about it, it'll be my first public showing in Seattle.
The Hope Art page on the STIFF site allows reviews... so if you've seen Hope Art, go write me up good a review!
By the time Barack Obama was sworn in as president, the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle was covered in Obama Art. 'Hope Art,' takes a look at this phenomenon from the perspective of the artists, but also digs deeper to ask what this proliferation of Obama art means about the neighborhood. Are they merely displaying their support for their candidate, or are they being too quick to memorialize a president who hasn't even had the chance to prove himself? DIRECTED BY David Albright, MUSIC BY Colin Short, PRODUCED IN ASSOCATION WITH the Capitol Hill Seattle Blog FEATURING Jen Graves – Art Writer for the Stranger, Spike Mafford – Photographer, Shelly Farnham – Artist, Damion Hayes – Currator, BLVD Gallery, Kate Stineback – Capitol Hill Housing
Smells Like Money DVD Cover
When I was going to school at WWU and the NW Film School (yeah that's a picture of me on the homepage), I produced, shot and edited a documentary called "Smells Like Money: The Story of Bellingham's Georgia Pacific Plant." My goal at the time (2006) was to sell 100 copies of the DVDs. I just got a check from Village Books, and during the holiday season they sold a whopping 4 copies, which puts me at 102 DVDs sold. It took me three years, but I did it!
About an hour after I sat down to edit this video, I decided that I had a good enough story here for it to be more just a web video, and that if I spent some serious time editing I could probably submit this to some film festivals as a documentary short. What is the different between a web video and documentary short? I’m not sure exactly. (I’ve also been thinking lately about whether there is a difference between a “citizen journalism video” and documentary but that’s a whole ‘nother topic.)
The main difference for me was that when I decided it was a doc short instead of a web video, I stopped assuming the viewer had ADD. It’s pretty well established that online video viewers have short attention spans... I know I do. When I watch web videos I often fast forwarding to find more interesting sections, or just get distracted by something else on the page and click away from the video. (I hate that I do this, and I’ve been making a conscious effort lately to extend my web attention span.) When I edit web videos, I don’t add typically use very much nat sound unless it’s needed to tell the story, or long establishing shots, which slow down the pacing and give people a chance to get distracted, but I did use those things here. As a result I think “Hope Art,” is a better doc short, but probably doesn’t play as well as it could as a web video.
Editing this video has reminded me a little about the limitations of web video. It’s hard to tell a good story when you’re constantly worried about holding the viewers attention. I’ve been focusing pretty exclusively on web video for a while now, but having a story that takes a little more time to tell is making me appreciate the idea of sitting someone down and making them focus on my film.
So what you do you think? Is this video too slow paced for the internet? Did you sit through the whole thing?
Also make sure to visit this video at it's CHS page, and add a couple of pennies to my earnings (I get $$$ per page view)
Read More