Cannes Gets Spiked

It's now Friday and the ball is rolling.  David got into the opening night premiere of "Blindness" and suavely moseyed up the red carpet.  Last night we snuck into a European production company party (Mk2, we thought it was in the Kimmel office, the company that's producing Charlie Kaufman's "Synecdoche, New York").  The party was slightly lame, but on a rooftop overlooking the Riviera (pictures coming soon) and an open bar.  After much Jameson whiskey and creepy dancing we turned in for the night with dreams of seeing the first images of Spike Lee's "Miracle at St. Anna" at a private market screening which we did this morning.  The Star  theatre accepted our glowing holographic invites with big French smiles and we bore witness to an intense fifteen minute trailer of gunfire, explosions and talk of miracles.  To put it in David's words, "Spike's not in Brooklyn anymore."

You can find the imdb here.

Canning

As Adair explained, the festival opens today with the launch of the market and opening of the pavilion. Most importantly, however, free phone calls and reliable american keyboarded internet access opens today too! The carpet unrolls for 'Blindness' tonight and I'll be hitting up the hotels trying to catch the guests at the bars. I'm going to try to score tickets for the new Woody Allen movie, Charlie Kaufman movie and maybe getting into the industry screening of 'select scenes' from Spike Lee's new movie.

Most importantly, I'll be hanging out by the artists entry to the Palais in hopes of running into a good celeb by the bathrooms. (They use the same bathrooms as us). 'They' as in those better than us. Special thanks to Joe for working so diligently on the website, it looks great. E-mail his amazing designer self at jligotti@bu.edu fellow Cannes-ians.

Until the next update.

-dh

CANNES!

It's opening day at Cannes and we're flashing hungry eyes behind our (somewhat) fashionable sunglasses. Why? Party invites of course. So you get a party invite, then what? Well, I'd like to grease my palms with Marty's pomade and though Cate has already bore her new child, David would still like to rub her belly. Blindness opens the festival (which should be adequately horrifying) and we have an opportunity to bid on which screening we want tickets to but more research needs to be done. Which screening will prove the most fun/exciting/fruitful? Who cares, I just wanna see Brangelina roll those freshly purchased babies up the red carpet.

JOE INSERT PICTURE I WILL BE TEXTING YOU HERE.

This pic was taken the morning of opening night while all the Frenchies were still sleeping off the previous night's boozing and we had the place to ourselves to wander behind the scenes like the dorks we be.

-AA

Having your Cate and eating it too

Congrats to Cate Blanchett on the birth of her third child.

That is all.

-dh

-- a peak at the first shortlist logo design.

the bottom image is the animation concept. a website layout is next on the drawing board.

- ligotti

[your resident designer]

News for graduates! Yayy!

Industry braced for economic impact

By Steven Zeitchik
April 9, 2008

NEW YORK -- As the U.S. economy faces a swirl of negative forces, the film-financing world is set to endure its own perfect storm.

And like the economy, things could get a lot worse before they get better.

Much of the focus has in recent months been the fate of slate funds such as Dune and Gun Hill as Wall Street wrings its hands over its lack of selection and low batting averages.

But so-called single-picture financing -- which encompasses films ranging from the smallest indie to a $60 million star vehicle -- is going through its own turbulence. Projects that would have sailed through easily a year ago are stalled in development. Movies that are practically in preproduction are falling apart at the eleventh hour.

"We've always gotten calls from producers saying, 'Our financing has fallen through; can you help us?' " the Film Department's Mark Gill said. "Now we're getting a lot more."

Read the rest

Union-Man Scott's the name

Recently, I sat down for lunch with Tim Suhrstedt, ASC member and DP of such films as Little Miss Sunshine, Pumpkin and Office Space, as well as the new Ricky Gervais feature now shooting in Lowell, MA, This Side of the Truth.



Sandwiches: He had the turkey with cranberry chutney and apple slaw; I had the tuna, with a side of wisdom and advice drizzled in house vinaigrette (tangy but truthful). Besides sharing the last name of his wife (Oscar-winning costumer Deborah Lynn Scott) and half of the hyphenated last name of his daughter, I also aspire to DP features, possibly for the rest of my life and beyond.

His advice: Unionize! A career move strangely not emphasized by any of my professors... Though perhaps they consider it obvious, it seems that so many film graduates have no idea what they're doing once they're out, and simply jump ship to LA and gain a little weight.

The problem: He and I have been working on trying to figure out exactly how exactly for a young guy like me to get into the union (IATSE: International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees), and I have been secretly struggling to understand the difference between IATSE Local 600 and the International Cinematographers Guild, which could possibly be the same thing. Either way, it's key that I get into one or both or all three (IATSE Local 481, inc. Massachusetts area) of these as every major film produced in the US goes through them and, of course, they provide health insurance, disability pay, field trips to parks and training sessions.

Other advice: To keep shooting even if I get gigs as a film loader or AC - to always keep DP'ing because I won't really learn how to do it by watching someone else. And, most importantly, to accept that the film career path is not linear, and that experience does not always beget better, more rewarding experience, and to take it with some humor. And on that decidedly unfunny note, this blog ends (clearly, I've learned nothing).

Updates on the union progress, which I have now made my summer goal, to come.

-EA Scott