YouTube and The Guggenheim: open call for submissions for creative-video exhibition

The Guggenheim Museum in New York City is mounting an exhibit showcasing the creativity of online video, and that includes documentary work. The deadline is 20 days away.

The details from the museum’s site:

YouTube Play. A Biennial of Creative Video aims to discover and showcase the most exceptional talent working in the ever-expanding realm of online video. Developed by YouTube and the Guggenheim Museum in collaboration with HP, YouTube Play hopes to attract innovative, original, and surprising videos from around the world, regardless of genre, technique, background, or budget. This global online initiative is not a search for what’s “now,” but a search for what’s next. Visit youtube.com/play to learn more and submit a video.

About YouTube Play
In the last two decades, there has been a paradigm shift in visual culture. The moving image has been fully absorbed into critical contemporary-art practices, and now we are witnessing the power of the Internet to catalyze and disseminate new forms of digital media, including online video. With video now available for anyone to produce and watch, almost anytime and anywhere—be it on cell phones, digital cameras, computers, or tablets—it has become the medium of choice for many aspiring artists. YouTube Play will recognize the current effect of new technologies on creativity by showcasing exceptional talent working in the ever-expanding realm of digital media.

It is the goal of YouTube Play to reach the widest possible audience, inviting each and every individual with access to the Internet to submit a video for consideration. The end result will hopefully be the ultimate YouTube playlist: a selection of the most unique, innovative, groundbreaking video work being created and distributed online during the past two years.

How to Participate
Now through July 31, 2010, participants are invited to submit new or existing videos created within the last two years at youtube.com/play. Submissions may include any form of creative video, including animation, motion graphics, narrative, non-narrative, or documentary work, music videos, and entirely new art forms.

Selection Process
After the submission period closes, the Guggenheim Museum will identify up to 200 videos for online viewing at youtube.com/play. From this group, up to 20 videos will be selected by a jury of experts, comprised of distinguished artists, filmmakers, graphic designers, and musicians, to be presented at the Guggenheim Museum in New York during a special event on October 21, 2010, on view to the public October 22–24, with simultaneous presentations at the Guggenheim museums in Berlin, Bilbao, and Venice.

Have a Heineken!

“Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage,” has won the Heineken Audience Award for documentary at the recent Tribeca Film Festival.

The film, by Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn, gets $25,000. The film has its International Premiere at Hot Docs in Toronto.

Here’s Tribeca’s program note on the 106-minute film:

Tribeca documentary award to ‘Monica & David’

A documemtary film about a Down-syndrome couple preparing for married life has won the best documentary award at Tribeca.

Tribeca announced that ‘Monica & David,” directed by Alexandra Codina, was awarded the best doc prize. Codina, a Minami-based filmmaker, is a cousin of the film’s Monica.

IFP names Documentary Lab films

The Independent Filmmaker Labs are an opportunity for low-budget narrative and documentary makers to get some guidance and support for their projects in intensive one-day workshops in New York. Filmmakers with projects in post, but not yet completed, apply to the program for the fellowships.

IndieWire reports that 10 documentaries have been chosen for the program. They are:

“25 To Life”
William Brawner was infected with HIV before he turned two and kept it a secret for over 20 years. Now he seeks redemption from the women of his promiscuous past and embarks on a new phase of life with his pregnant wife, who is HIV-negative.
Fellows: Michael L. Brown (Director, Producer); Yvonne Shirley (Producer)

“Damelo Todo” (Give Me Everything)
Los Angeles bar Silver Platter is a refuge for transgender women who have immigrated from Mexico and Central America fleeing war, poverty, and prejudice. A present-day Stonewall, drag shows meet avant-garde performance artists, giving rise to new alliances and modes of resistance.
Fellows: Wu Ingrid Tsang (Writer, Director); Felix Endara (Producer); Suzanne Mejean (Editor)

“Dear Mandela”
South Africa promised to eradicate the slums by 2010 in time for the Soccer World Cup. Three extraordinary young slum dwellers journey from the chaos on the streets to the highest court in the land to join their communities in resisting mass evictions. Their efforts unleash a deadly backlash, putting Mandela’s promise of a ‘better life for all’ to the test.
Fellows: Dara Kell (Director, Producer, Editor); Christopher Nizza (Director, Editor)

“Fambul Tok”
This insider’s view of an unprecedented post-conflict forgiveness program enters the lives of offenders who confess to crimes, and victims who forgive them, beginning together the process of reconciliation.
Fellows: Sara Terry (Director, Producer); Brian Singbiel (Editor)

“Give Up Tomorrow”
Simultaneously a murder-mystery and an exposé of endemic corruption in the post-Marcos Philippines, “Give Up Tomorrow” looks intimately at the case of Paco Larrañaga, a young Spanish mestizo sentenced to death for the abduction, rape, and murder of two Chinese-Filipino sisters on the island of Cebu.
Fellows: Michael Collins (Director, Producer); Marty Syjuco (Producer); Sara Kiener (Outreach Director)

“Our School”
The film follows three Roma children – Alin, Beniamin, and Dana – strugling to break down the barriers of segregation as they move from a dead-end segregated school into a mainstream school where they will learn together with Romanians.
Fellows: Mona Nicoara (Director, Producer); Miruna Coca-Cozma (Director); Erin Casper (Editor)

“The Patron Saints”
A disquieting and at times surrealistic exploration of an assisted living facility. Bound by first-hand ruminations of Jim, the nursing home’s youngest and recently disabled resident, the film is a revealing portrait of the changing nature of bodies and minds.
Fellows: Brian Cassidy (Director, Producer, DP, Editor); Melanie Shatzky(Director, Producer, DP, Editor)

“Puppet”
Puppet interweaves a big picture look at the fraught history of American puppetry (its marginalization as children’s theater and its sudden explosion as high art) with an intimate thread following Dan Hurlin, a downtown artist who is creating a complex puppet work about the strange life of an eccentric, Depression-era photographer.
Fellows: David Soll (Director, Producer, DP, Editor); Jared Ian Goldman (Executive Producer); Andrew Schwartztol (Associate Producer)

“A Rubberband is an Unlikely Instrument”
Walter Baker is an eccentric, multi-instrumentalist struggling to find his creative voice in NYC even as he must also bear the roles of family man and business owner. An unexpected Texas family gathering triggers deeper conflicts that find him grappling to reconcile fractured roots in the South and at home.
Fellows: Matt Boyd (Director, DP, Editor); Jason Ross (Producer); Michael Carter (Editor)

“Salmon Dreams”
A young Tlingit Indian makes a pilgrimage to remote rural Alaska to spend a summer living off the land and preparing traditional food, a winter’s supply of smoked salmon. He is forced to confront the dichotomy between his history and the modern world he lives in, creating a parallel with his culture’s disintegration and struggle to revitalize itself.
Fellows: Luke Griswold-Tergis (Director, Producer, Writer, DP); Maureen Gosling (Editor)

‘Enemies of the People’ takes big prize at Full Frame

Full Frame is a wrap, and the News & Observer notes that “Enemies of the People,” Thet Sambath’s journey back into the Killing Fields of Cambodia that cost him his family, took the top prize. Rob Lemkin co-produced and co-directed.

“Enemies of the People” was a big winner, as it received the Anne Dellinger Grand Jury Award, with special jury prizes going to “The Oath” and “Restrepo.” “Restrepo” also received an honorable mention from jurors for the Charles E. Guggenheim Emerging Artist Award, which also went to “Enemies.”

“Enemies” premiered at Sundance, where it was the winner of the Special Jury Prize.

Chicago film contest has lucrative awards

The news release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 2010

“The only way to bring about the future we seek is if we’re
willing to work together as one nation and one people.”
President Barack Obama

MULTI-MEDIA SOCIAL ACTION INITIATIVE COMBATS MUSLIM STEREOTYPES & UNITES DIVERSE COMMUNITIES THROUGH FILM CONTEST, COMMUNITY AMBASSADORS & $200,000 IN GRANTS

Deadline for Digital Online Film Contest Awarding $50,000 in Prizes, Friday, April 23rd

CHICAGO – One Nation with The Chicago Community Trust, Link TV, Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN) is currently hosting the multi-media initiative One Chicago, One Nation and a primary component of the initiative – the Online Film Contest.  With only 30 days left before the film contest ends on Friday, April 23, 2010, One Chicago, One Nation is seeking short 5-minute film submissions that promote interfaith and multi-cultural collaboration among Chicago’s diverse communities.

One Chicago, One Nation is a first-of-its-kind regional initiative and national model that promotes pluralism and inclusion to engage a representation of the Chicago area’s 400,000 Muslims with other culturally diverse residents as a critical step toward overcoming ongoing tensions.

“One Chicago, One Nation will set a new precedent for positively engaging the diversity of a major urban center,” said Eboo Patel, executive director, Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC).  “By breaking down barriers and building bridges to unite our diverse neighbors, we can create a stronger Chicago community and serve as an important national model.”

A national Gallup Poll released in 2006 identified the key to combating racism and fear toward the Muslim community is through face-to face meetings between Muslims and non-Muslims. The One Chicago, One Nation initiative focuses on personal interaction using storytelling as a primary tool for dispelling cultural misperceptions and building trust.

“The role of storytelling is incredibly important in developing strong relationships across religious, cultural and socio-economic boundaries,” said Rami Nashashibi, executive director, Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN). “Through storytelling and dialogue we can better understand one another and the common values that unite us so that we may move forward together as a stronger community.”

Harnessing the power of diversity, One Chicago, One Nation offers three main initiatives:

• Film Contest: Launch an online film contest, hosted by Link TV, awarding $50,000 in prizes for stories illustrating Chicagoland neighbors working together to achieve common goals;
• Community Ambassador Program: Mobilize Community Ambassadors – made up of hundreds of Chicagoland residents, students, and community leaders – to flood communities with social dialogue to build trust;
• Action Grants: Fuel neighborhoods with $200,000 in targeted grants for trust- and community-building projects that sustain interfaith and intercultural partnerships.

“Chicago is the third largest city in the United States, and we know how critical it is to build unity in our region by fighting the stereotypes that will divide us as a community and as a nation,” said Terry Mazany, president and CEO, The Chicago Community Trust.  “We must meet one another one-on-one, talk with each other, understand each other’s differences and commonalities.  It is only by harnessing the power of our diverse communities that we build our strength. America’s legacy as a melting pot serves as the foundation for our great democracy. Extremists exist everywhere…what we must not allow is for them to divide and conquer through their hate.”

Oscar short-doc figurine-wrestling opens the question of ‘who owns the film’

Not a great moment for the documentary world, as an ousted producer jumps on stage during the short-documentary Oscar presentation to “Music by Prudence” and sets off another 24 hours of WTF.

But the battle between director Roger Ross Williams and ousted producer Elinor Burkett makes for good discussion outside the gossip mags that are enjoying the craziness of it. The Williams-Burkett situation is a reminder that the question of who’s in control must start at the beginning of the process. They are both invoking “creative differences” as the reason for their split and the ensuing lawsuit, now settled.

One post, “Choose your collaborators wisely,” describes the collaboration as a desperation move:

Roger Ross Williams hated his job as a television producer. Desperate for something different, he went to the Catskills, N.Y. home of his neighbor, Elinor Burkett, an author and journalist who also has a home in Zimbabwe. “‘Save me,’” Burkett jokingly recalls Williams said to her, to an audience in the Catskills in early 2009

Partnerships on small projects rarely begin with a lawyer-generated contract – the budgets are too small to burn off money on that – but they should begin with some form of agreement with clear understanding of the roles of the participants. Titles only mean as much as the clarity with which responsibilities and controls are laid out. A countersigned letter of agreement can work; emails also serve as a form of “fixation” that create a verifiabe trail.

Alison Bulman, who recorded a podcast of Burkett and Williams in 2009, said,

“Their relationship seemed fun. They seemed cordial to each other. But you’ve heard the podcast. You can definitely hear her mowing him over. She’s a loud, New Yorker-seeming woman, and he’s the soft spoken, creative type.”

What did Burkett think she would get? She apparently suggested the idea to Wiliams, but that does not in any legal way constitute creative ownership of the project. But what if a producer goes out and raises money to fund a very specific idea or approach, and the director decides to take the project in a new direction? The producer may feel a certain obigation to keep investors from feeling as if the money wasn’t put toward the idea they signed on to pay for. Or, if a producer acts in a “mentoring” relationship with a young director that implies a right of control, can it be spelled out? Studios, for example, often reserve the right to have the final edit, and some producers on small projects ask for the same.

When the director enters the deal, what does he/she expect? A producer is often someone who creates an overall business model, or works the preproduction part of the equation to set up interviews, locations and crews. “Producer” is a much less clear title. Producers can be subordinates, or they can be supervisory. On rare occasions they can be equals, but I’d make the cases that true equal creative control really means you have co-directors.

One wonders, looking at the Williams-Burkett dust-up, who thought they were in charge. The interviews Burkett has given in the last news cycle suggests she believes she was the key person in the project, someone who steered a young director who’d “never even heard of Zimbabwe” to a project that has now brought him an Academy Award. Williams, who is now saying “I own the film,” seems to be someone who believes that Burkett was helpful at first but then became an obstacle to his control. Because their lawsuit was settled out of court, one is unlikely to get any details of how they made their deal, but it’s highly likely it was a loose agreement based on an iniital excitement about a project.

Who owns the film? Most often it’s the person who comes up with the money. Louie Psihoyos, the winner in the documentary feature category, went ahead and funded himself. In doing so, he took risk but really simplified the control issue. He is a seasoned pro who went forward not with hopes but with a game plan, and the assumption good work would result.

Few people who start making documentaries, especially shorts, are crazy enough to believe they’ll make any money. But, by the same token, a contract should have very clear agreements about who gets what share. It should also put in clear words who has control over how the film will be distributed, in which film festivals it will be entered, who is responsible for marketing, and how much each party is responsible for the negatives, such as lawsuits. And the question of who owns the copyright is worth exploring.

Contracts should also cover people involved in the production who do “work for hire,” meaning those who are paid (even if deferred payment) but have no copyright ownership or other control. That usually includes editors, camera operators, sound recordists and composers of music. One thing some low-budget productions do is throw the producer title at everybody, to make them feel they have stake in the project. But those people can potentially become a voting body if their roles as so-called producers aren’t clear.

One benefit of the lowered cost of documentary filmmaking is the opportunity for one person to truly “own” a project.” But if there are more involved, who has creative control must be worked out at the very start. For Williams and Burkett, what probably started out with a handshake ended up with a  tug-of-war that went all the way to the big stage.

It appears Apple’s world dominance of documentary market near complete

Nine out of the 10 Oscar finalists in documentary were edited on Final Cut Pro, the lone exception being “Rabbit a la Berlin,” which was not on Avid but on Adobe Premiere.

In a post on Cnet, Jim Darymple caught up with some of the filmmakers, and the responses sound liek an Apple ad (not because JD isn’t a good journalist, but because this is how much these people like FCP).

CNET caught up with a few of the people responsible for making some of this year’s nominated movies including Matthew O’Neil, director of “China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province;” Kim Roberts, editor of “Food, Inc.;” and Dan Wilken, online editor of “Food, Inc.”

“We switched over entirely to Final Cut Pro and forced any holdout editors to switch too, because it made the most sense economically and allowed us to do everything we needed,” said O’Neil.

Roberts agreed. “I tend to work on a lot of independent documentaries and Final Cut Pro is affordable and a good application. It’s been a natural choice for filmmakers,” she said.

One of the big draws about Final Cut Studio for all of the people we spoke with is its ability to do a variety of tasks. Like most jobs, Filmmakers and editors are expected to do more tasks these days before the movie is handed off for post production.

Because Final Cut Studio includes so many tools, filmmakers are able to create very polished rough cuts. That allows the editors to present a great looking film right out of the box.

“You can do it all with Final Cut Studio and we can make it look close to finished all in-house,” said O’Neil.

‘Music by Prudence’ worked on low budget and a good story

While the Academy-Award win by a low-budget films as Best Picture “The Hurt Locker” is inspiring, both Documentary winners reinforce the notion that big budgeting is not as important as a good story well told. Louie Psihoyos’s “The Cove” was a self-funded labor of love and is a deserving work.

In the short documentary category especially, we see that the filmmakers have succeeded against many odds. The winner, “Music by Prudence” has a story behind the story that director Roger Ross Williams tells in a Q-andA on the film’s site - how he found Prudence, (a wheelchair-bound singer in a Zimbabwean band) and how he employed a young film-school grad as a cameraman, and how he pieced the work together. It all started with a story he felt he had to tell:

My producer lives part-time in Zimbabwe, and had seen [Liyana] perform. She wrote to me and told me she saw this amazing singer that she thought would make a great story. She put me in contact with Inez Hussey, the director of Prudence’s school. Inez sent me footage of the band and of Prudence. I watched the tape and knew that I had to make a movie about them and about her.

Where did each Oscar-nominated documentary premiere?

As another Academy Award season wraps, it might be interesting to see where each documentary nominee had its start. And, as might be expected, the place one begins might predict the place one ends. It might not suprise that for doc features, the nominees cluster in traditional “big” festivals, and in shorts, there’s more of a democratic feel to how they arrived.

Documentary Features:

The Cove – Sundance

Burma VJ - IDFA

Food, Inc. – Toronto

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers -Toronto

Which Way Home – Tribeca

Documentary shorts:

Rabbit a la Berlin – Visions du Reel

China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province – was to have premiered at the Beijing Independent Film Festival but was censored by the Chinese govermnet; premiered on HBO.

The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant - Telluride

The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner – This film was acquired by HBO and was on the Oscar short list before it ever hit a festival.

Music by Prudence – IFP, Independent Film Week. ( a 20-minute “trailer”)

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