All these wonderful things

A Few Words about Cinema Eye 2012 and This Space

Admittedly, we’ve been a stranger around these parts lately, but more on that in a moment.

As I write this, I’m en route to Los Angeles, returning from London, where we just announced the nominees for this year’s Cinema Eye Honors (you can find the full list here).  It was a great experience on this end, terrific to see several weeks (months?) of hard work by a lot of different people come to fruition and wonderful to officially kick off this annual celebration of the artistry of nonfiction filmmaking.

I was struck by a number of things as Wednesday night ended and the word of this year’s nominations was starting to spread to nominees on all parts of the globe. 

First, I realized that I sometimes underestimate the challenge of this part of our Cinema Eye process, the period from engaging our eligible filmmakers to launching the vote to tallying the nominees to relaunching a website complete with new artwork by the amazing Ben Chlapek.  It’s not quite the massive undertaking that the actual event is, but it’s pretty close.

Second, I remembered that despite 11 categories and five (and occasionally six) slots for nominees per award, there were a number of films that I loved this year that weren’t on the Cinema Eye list.  Mostly, this makes me think that this must be yet another great year for documentary (and I do believe that it is) but I still hope that some of my favorites will be recognized elsewhere before the year is done.

So for that reason, I was particularly glad to see HOW TO DIE IN OREGON announced as one of the five films up for the IDA Award for Best Documentary today.  Here’s hoping that the Oscar shortlist and the Spirits might show some love to a couple of my other favorites.

Now, about that absence...

There’s this thing that I’ve been telling folks privately that I should finally share with those of you who still come over here from time to time, wondering why the last post was more than two months ago.

These long stretches are evidence of the fact that this nearly six and a half year endeavour is winding down.  Writing this blog has been a huge surprise for me, quite obviously.  It began as a way to chronicle the work on my film, KURT COBAIN ABOUT A SON, and it became someting else, something that came to change my life in a lot of ways and somehow came to mean something to more people than one could even imagine.

It’s allowed me to meet and talk with filmmakers, travel to festivals, experience parts of this documentary life that I could have never expected.

Without the blog there is no Cinema Eye. 

But without making films there is no blog. 

And it is time to make more films.

Soon, this thing that I’ve done, often late at night after the wife and child have gone to bed, will conclude.  But the thing that it spawned, this thing of Cinema Eye that I’m so proud to share with a core of amazing friends and colleagues and with everyone who has ever been nominated in the now five years of our existence, will thrive.  And proudly so.

And there will be a new focus on the thing that inspired the blog in the first place.

This isn’t goodbye yet - and I’ll try not to make it a long, drawn out goodbye - but the end of this chapter is coming. 

Like my Cinema Eye colleague Sean Farnel said when he signed off from Hot Docs, six years was enough.

He also said, “I work for documentary.”

Allow me to second that emotion.

Merry Christmas to all...

...and to all a good night.  See you after the holidays.

On not knowing...

A funny thing happened this morning when I was powering through my morning online routine: a random click revealed that CONVENTION, the film I made with a bunch of good friends in the summer of 2008, was to premiere tonight on the Sundance Channel.

Funny not because I didn't know that tonight was the premiere, but because I didn't even know that IFC Films (to whom we sold the worldwide rights to CONVENTION) had, in turn, sold the broadcast rights to their sister company, Sundance Channel. 

Truth be told, tonight could have passed by quite easily with me being none the wiser (someone took Sundance Channel off our DirectTV rotation) and I have a feeling that most - if not all - of my collaborators and our subjects would have moved into Tuesday blissfully unaware that something they did two Augusts ago had been beamed/cabled into living rooms.

It made me think back to my first film, GIGANTIC (A TALE OF TWO JOHNS), and how my producer and I were so actively involved and on top of every new development with the film - a one night screening in Sheboygan?  We knew about it and had probably lobbied the local arts reporter at the Sheboygan Press (actual paper) to write about it.  We talked to our distributor every day (at least up until they went bankrupt) for the latest news of ticket sales, reviews and prospects for future engagements.

This happened less so on my second film and now seems altogether quaint as I think about CONVENTION.  Part of this is what happened to indie film, alternative weeklies and the like in the intermediate eight years (as they like to say, the bottom dropped out) - it became more difficult to stay on top of the ever changing/degrading environment.  Part of it was the brutal combination of sheer exhaustion and lack of income - a new job/new film/new project/new paycheck seemed to hold more promise than the beating of the last horse, dead or otherwise.

The Largest Rube Goldberg Machine Ever? OK Go's Amazing New Music Video for This Too Shall Pass

Point of personal privilege...

Wanted to point to the new video by the band OK Go for their single, This Too Shall Pass.  This video was several months in the making and I'm honored to have been involved with it (I was the EP).  And particularly  proud of the band, producer Shirley Moyers, director James Frost, DP Dermott Downs and the entire team at Synn Labs for their hard work, creativity and patience in getting this complicated, epic video just right.

As I wrote in this space about a month ago, I've been involved with a number of music videos over the years, but this one is really something special.

Take a look:

My Documentary Decade

Dear Readers -

Apologies for dropping the ball here on the blog the past few weeks.  Between wrapping up shooting on my new film and prepping and planning for this year's Cinema Eye Honors, I've been procrastinating my return to somewhat regular blogging.

Here's a piece I started writing as I was en route to Branson, Missouri just after Christmas.  I'll be posting a couple more looks back at the year we just concluded in the coming days/weeks.  Pardon the delay.

_______________

There’s a story to what happened to me this decade and it starts in the spring of the year 2000.  I was then an Executive Producer at a production company that specialized in music videos, working with a bunch of talented filmmakers, routinely awarded budgets of $350K to make a 3 ½ minute clip that would – hopefully for the band, the label and their hangers-on – be awarded a coveted slot on the Carson Daly-hosted "Total Request Live".

The clips had to be of a certain high production value, the labels seemed to believe, or there would be no possibility of landing on the afternoon countdown show, one of the few venues remaining on MTV for music videos.  So the budgets, even for bands that you and I would never hear from again, had to be mid-six figures.  Or else said band might slip into the ether.

By the spring we’d surfed this wave for almost a year and I was starting to feel restless.  More and more of my own creative ideas were being poured into the work that was coming out of our company, but the execution of these ideas – and the ownership of same – fell, quite naturally, to the director. 

I remember sitting in the color correct of one particular video, a video whose concept I had proposed (and one that would later become such a hit on said MTV countdown program that it would help launch the band and the director’s career) and feeling like I had well and truly reached the end of my ability to stand in the shadows.

Simultaneously, there was a very real sense that the status quo in that industry could not sustain itself.  MTV was continually cutting back on the number of videos it was playing and the labels were under attack from digital downloads.  And how could labels keep spending that kind of money on bands with little hope of recouping the costs of such extravagant vanity videos?

Just prior to this – at the end of the previous decade – I started to direct my own projects – a friend’s music video here, a public service announcement there, and finally, a short film.  And by the end of the year 2000, there was a merger.

My short was out on the festival circuit.  I felt – for the first time – not like an Executive Producer (which was a job I loved and, if I do say so myself, was pretty good at) but like a filmmaker.  I remember flying to London to oversee the shoot a video in the fall of 2000 and writing “Filmmaker” on the occupation line of my landing card and being strangely, wonderfully proud of this new designation.

By that point I had already, mentally, turned my back on music videos.  For a decade I’d worked on more than 100 – respected indie bands and big pop artists – but now I was increasingly ready to go my own way.

And within three months, I’d be in New York shooting footage for what would become GIGANTIC, my first documentary feature.

The how and the why of GIGANTIC’s birth is less important than the fact that the arrival of this decade – one that has been castigated and bemoaned for its acts of terror, war, political combat and natural decay – signaled a significant shift in my life.

My documentary decade.

I couldn’t have known as I was running around New York with my Sony PD-150 following Johns Flansburgh and Linnell in the spring of 2001 what would happen in the decade that followed.

I could not have imagined KURT COBAIN ABOUT A SON or CONVENTION. 

I had no notion that I would start a blog (blog? What’s a blog?) or an award for nonfiction filmmaking.

I would never think that I’d end the decade in the Ozark Mountain town of Branson, Missouri celebrating the arrival of a new decade with a camera in my hand.

I never dreamed that I would take it all so seriously, so personally, so occasionally obsessively.

I fell into documentary almost by chance and – in some kind of Faustian bargain – documentary has run away with me.

Lynn Meyer, 1925-2009

Point of personal privilege…

On Saturday, my Aunt Lynn passed away.  She’d had no end of medical difficulties since she had a stroke nearly two years ago and we’d known for the past week that the situation was grave, but the loss remains.

It’s nearly impossible to write about her without first talking about what a pain in the ass she could sometimes be.  When something would set her off, she could be withering in her dealings with you.  As a child, this was sometimes devastating.  But as I grew up, I started to – playfully – engage this side of her personality.  For instance, when she told me (after I’d been out of college a couple years) that she was eagerly awaiting the day that I matured (pronounced ma-toored, naturally), I responded that I’d send her a card to let her know when that day had, in fact, arrived.

Long after that, even as she began to grasp and root for my filmmaking career, she couldn’t quite understand why I didn’t ever wear (or really even own) a suit. 

But during the last ten or so years, particularly before the stroke, we found a common language.  I recognized the artist in her (she was the one who had always painted, who thrilled when I called her from Paris after touring the Rodin Museum); she proudly followed the beginnings of my filmmaking career (she’d listen to the local movie show on the radio in Chicago and call me whenever they talked about documentaries or film festivals). 

Those phone calls became regular, practically weekly.  We’d talk politics.  While probably more of a Republican, she could vote on either side of the aisle and I knew the tone of the country had shifted when she told me she had turned against the Iraq War.  She would have loved CONVENTION.  She loved to see how things worked and loved to see when things did work.

She loved talking about movies.  She dragged my mom to see BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN because, well, it was going to be in the Oscar race and gosh darn it if she didn’t want to know what the fuss was. 

Her and my mom together were a sight.  One day when Shirley and I were in Chicago we went to pick them up in the suburbs for a day in the city.  Oh the short film I could have made of them that day – bantering, laughing, forgetting where they put their car, my Aunt taking great pleasure in the nice little French bistro we took them to.  She was a character, larger than life, larger probably than the small camera frame I would have tried to wrap around her.

Through much of my early life, Lynn was an enigma.  She had a different last name than anyone else in my family.  I’d ask why and there were whispers of an ill-fated marriage.  It was only in the last few years, when I read some of Lynn’s evocative and sometimes aching writings that I found out about the abusive husband and the day that her beloved father, my grandfather, stood in the doorway and demanded the man to go away and to never return.

There were other mysteries.  I was shocked to learn when I began work on ABOUT A SON that she had once lived in Seattle.  If anyone was capable of surprise, it was Lynn.  And those phone calls between us were more compelling and funny and thought-provoking than my 13-year old self could have ever imagined. 

The stroke ended much of this.  It became more difficult to communicate by phone.  Her freedom to live as she chose – afternoons in the city, luncheons with friends, theater – ended the day she fell in her shower.  She remained whip smart, but the depression of losing so much of what defined her (at least to herself) began to take over.

Writing this makes me remember again how much I mourned the loss of those phone calls.  I guess in some ways I came to grips with losing part of her in the year after her accident.  Also, I admit that it was harder for me to hear that crackling woman struggle to keep her thoughts together or convey them in the way she wanted.  And the more I traveled, which was often in these past two years, the longer the stretches between conversations on the phone.  She’d say to my mom that she hadn’t heard from me for a while.  Regrets, regrets…

Talking or writing about what happens after death feels like a bridge too far for a blog that often ruminates on film festivals and box office data and Oscar chances.  But since these were all things that Aunt Lynn loved to talk about – hell, the true genesis of this blog was probably in the movie reviews that I typed up for her when I was ten – I’ll beg your indulgence. 

Here’s to hoping Lynn can stop by every once and awhile, I’d like to feel that spirit of hers.

And if it’s not asking too much and she’s able to drop or look into New York in January, I’d love for her to check out Cinema Eye, if only to see her nephew, co-hosting an awards show, wearing a suit. 

She might even think that I’d matured.

Here's to you, Lynn.

Labor Day Greetings

Forgive us for hitting the snooze the last couple of weeks, although we did note that we might be away for a while in our last Monday Brief.  Due to today's holiday action and the continued reactions coming from Telluride and Venice, we're gonna take today to collect our thoughts and will return tomorrow with reflections on SEPTEMBER ISSUE's huge opening, CAPITALISM's premiere and more.

Meantime, folks with HBO should tune into Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert's THE LAST TRUCK: THE CLOSING OF A GM PLANT, which airs tonight and which world premiered in Telluride this weekend. 

Happy Birthday to Us (or the Blog Turns Four)

Four years ago today we launched this space with no idea of what it would become.  As we've said ad infinitum, we imagined this blog might be a place to chronicle the making of KURT COBAIN ABOUT A SON, the film that we were about to embark upon.  Now, on our fourth birthday, we are flying to Washington DC, preparing to launch our latest film.

One of the most interesting challenges as we've evolved (or devolved depending on your POV) has been finding a balance between our public conversation about nonfiction filmmaking and our personal interests - whether they be our own filmmaking or relationships with others in the community.  As we prepare to debut CONVENTION - and as we continue working on our Branson film - we hope to continue our conversation with you and with the nonfiction form itself as fully and completely as we are able.  And we hope that you'll bear with us during those patches when we disappear for awhile.

The other day I wrote the following to a friend:

I feel like I am still learning how to balance the private me - the person who can have direct, impassioned conversations with friends, peers, associates over films and issues - with the public me, who I feel should strive to be less of a grenade thrower and more of a persuader.  4 years into my blog run and it's a constant education.

There will be times when the lines blur, when I grab some righteous anger by the collar and spew forth here with much indignation.  I ask for your forebearance.

My thanks for your constant support and encouragement and also for the occasional whack aside the head.  Here's to year number 5.

The Life of a Documentary Filmmaker/Film Writer

A peek behind the blogging/making curtain.

Driving today, my 4 (almost 5) year old daughter said to me, "Dad, I want you to get a job so that we have money."

My wife/producer says, "Well, actually, Daddy has like 3 or 4 jobs."

To which my daughter says, "Yeah, but I want him to have a job that he goes to every day."

Understanding the difference between freelancing and permanence must be some kind of sign of the coming adolescence (apocalypse). 

Thankful

For my family, particularly the wife and child.

For my real Branson brothers.

For the Convention team.

For showbiz families and civil servants and reporters & editors and protesters who allow cameras to document their lives.

For friends spread across the world, with whom I get to connect at locations far and near.

For filmmakers and film writers who inspire and challenge.

For readers who put up with occasional (sometimes lengthy) lapses in blogging.

For Cinema Eye and all who made round one possible.

For distributors and investors who still believe in nonfiction.

For French distributors who know what they are doing.

For the president-elect.

For never escape, reading stories, tackle and tumble & Randy Newman.

For coffee and cream, gin and tonics, mints & MGMT.

For Sunday brunch.