After joining Nielsen's top-10 video sites, and serving more video in May than ABC.com, young video streaming site Hulu.com (it launched in April), has added another milestone: it premiered it's first full-length film.

A documentary, no less, Crawford, by first-time filmmaker David Modigliani.

Even though Modigliani blogged that "If you're looking for a political polemic or a filmmaker injecting himself into the story of a film, Crawford is not for you" we posted a player featuring the full movie in our Doc the Vote political section. Grab some popcorn and enjoy the show.

The film, about how the small town was changed when George W. Bush moved there in 1999 also represents a change in distribution models. With Hulu's wide reach, people will get to see the film--and Modigliani may even make a buck or two.

Modigliani's take on it, via the Hulu blog:

But first, let me say this: as a first-time filmmaker, I'm proud and I'm excited to premiere Crawford on Hulu. Over the last year, I've seen how the traditional models of film distribution are breaking down, how theatrical releases are failing, great films are going unwatched and distributors are closing their doors. And yet, simultaneously, I've seen that the audience for independent film is at an all-time high. There's a buffer between quality content and an audience that's hungry for it. Hulu's excitement about Crawford and their choice to make it their first premiere will help us cut through the morass out there and connect all of you to a film I think you'll love. These are exciting times.

Crawford will be able to play in Hulu's high quality player on Facebook pages, fly over email and embed into blogs and websites. A lot of people are philosophizing about the future of film distribution; we're doing it right here, right now.

This release is a true experiment and we're excited to have all of you as partners and collaborators. After three years of filmmaking I can finally say: this is yours, now. Take it and run with it!

For the entire post, go here.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines! The race for the Oscars has just begun! The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released the short list for the entries in the Documentary Short Subject category. Up to five of these films will be earn Oscar nominations, which will be announced Thursday, January 22, 2009, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

Voters from the Academy's Documentary Branch viewed this year's 31 eligible contenders and submitted their ballots to PricewaterhouseCoopers for tabulation.

The eight films are listed below in alphabetical order:

The Conscience of Nhem En (Dir.: Stephen Okazaki)
David McCullough: Painting with Words (Dir.: Mark Herzog)
Downstream (Dir.: Leslie Iwerks)
The Final Inch (Dir.: Irene Taylor Brodsky)
Smile Pinki (Dir.: Megan Mylan)
Tongzhi in Love (Dir.: Ruby Yang)
Viva La Causa (Dirs.: Bill Brummel and Alonso Filomeno Mayo)
The Witness from the Balcony of Room 306 (Dir.: Adam Pertofsky)

Smile Pinki screened as part of IDA's DocuWeek Theatrical Documentary Showcase this past summer. For the trailer, click here; for the Q&A with director Megan Mylan, click here.

The 81st Academy Awards nominations will be presented on Sunday, February 22, 2009, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center, and televised live by the ABC Television Network.

Religulous, Bill Maher and Larry Charles' tongue-in-cheek quest to understand the faiths of the world while mocking them, opened strongly last week, taking in $3,428,633 at the box office, according to the indieWIRE BOT

The Lionsgate release also finished among last week's top ten grossersof any genre, and is the sixth documentary to top the hallowed seven-digit mark this year, joining Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed ($7,690,544), Shine A Light ($5,371,629), Young @ Heart ($3,966,690), Man on Wire ($2,509,822) and Gonzo ($1,218,652), according to BoxOfficeMojo.com.

Still hanging in there are Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World ($921,813), which opened at the beginning of the summer, and Yung Chang's Up the Yangtse ($799,061), another long-distance runner for Zeitgeist Films, which released the doc back in April. On the downside, Paramount Vantage must be licking its wounds with its last hurrah, American Teen, which the former arthouse division of Paramount bought for $2.5 million at Sundance and spent an additional sum for marketing and PR. But the film ended its run at $942,441, well before American teens were back in high school.

Today The Hollywood Reporter dug into a controversy over the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' feature documentary rules that has may distributors and film festivals worried.

To be considered for the upcoming 81st Annual Academy Awards, filmmakers need to screen their film for one week in both Los Angeles County and Manhattan by Aug. 31 (you know, like at DocuWeek).

Easy, right? Not so much.

Some are miffed over the the changing requirements, especially screening early in NY, for fear of ruining their official rollouts later. Some are at risk of being ignored for by the New York Film Festival because of an earlier premiere date. Other rules create even more hurdles for docs to get their shot. From THR:

"I can't understand why the Academy is making it even more difficult for documentaries by saying you need some kind of shadow release," New York Film Festival topper Richard Pena said. "I don't see how this policy helps the greater good of cinema."

What do you think of these new rules? Sound off in our comments section.

Get the whole article here.

The International Documentary Association (IDA) will award its prestigious 2008 Career Achievement Award to legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog. Herzog will accept the honor at the organization's annual IDA Documentary Awards Ceremony, to be held December 5, 2008 at the Directors Guild of America Theater in Los Angeles.

This award is given to a filmmaker who has made a major impact on the documentary genre through a long and distinguished body of work. While equally known for his narrative films, Encounters at the End of the World (see below) is the latest in a long list of enduring documentaries from Herzog, including Grizzly Man, White Diamond, My Best Fiend, Little Dieter Needs to Fly and Land of Silence and Darkness. Encounters was released earlier this year from Image/THINKFilm, to much critical and audience acclaim.

"With the onslaught of new technologies such as digital effects and Photo Shop, and new forms of ‘reality TV' and virtual realities in cyberspace, our sense of reality is challenged in an unprecedented way," said Herzog. "Documentary filmmaking is called upon to find new answers. In these times of re-definition, it is a particular honor for me to receive the award from the IDA."

"Werner is a true original, and we are extremely proud to recognize his vast and unique contributions to the evolving art of nonfiction film," said IDA's Interim Executive Director Eddie Schmidt.

In previous years, IDA has bestowed its Career Achievement award on documentary luminaries such as Sheila Nevins, Michael Apted, Ken Burns, Albert Maysles, Haskell Wexler and last year's recipient, Michael Moore.

During this December's awards show, five documentary feature-length films and five documentary shorts will compete for the organization's top film honors, with nominations announced later this fall. Other annual awards presented at the event include its Pioneer Award, Preservation & Scholarship Award and the new Avid Excellence In Editing Award, sponsored by the industry's editing giant.

The IDA Documentary Awards are currently in their 24th year. Additional details for the upcoming ceremony will be revealed shortly, with tickets on sale in October.

IDA, a non-profit dedicated to supporting and promoting the art of documentary film and video, can be reached at (213) 534-3600 and via www.documentary.org

Additional Coverage:
Paste Magazine 
Los Angeles Times "The Envelope"
IMDB.com
Variety
Our interview with Werner Herzog for release of Encounters at the End of the World
All Werner Herzog information on www.documentary.org

 

It's a big day at Adobe.

Today, Adobe Systems Incorporated announced Adobe® Creative Suite® 4 Production Premium, a complete solution for creative professionals who craft world-class video, audio, and interactive media--for delivery on-air, online, and on device.

There will be a CS4 launch webcast today at 9pm PST at www.adobe.com/go/somethingbrilliant. (The webcast will will also be viewable after the event if you miss it).

The entire press release is below. Plus, don't forget to check out the IDA's library of Adobe product tutorials in our video gallery. It's always being updated.

Adobe Systems Incorporated announced Adobe® Creative Suite® 4 Production Premium, a complete solution for creative professionals who craft world-class video, audio, and interactive media--for delivery on-air, online, and on device. Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium offers unprecedented levels of integration across major new releases of its video, audio, design, and Web tools, including Adobe After Effects® CS4 Professional, Adobe Premiere® Pro CS4, Adobe Encore® CS4, Adobe Photoshop® CS4 Extended (see separate release), Adobe Illustrator® CS4, Adobe Flash® CS4 Professional, Adobe® Soundbooth® CS4 and Adobe OnLocation™ CS4--now redesigned to natively support Intel-based Macs.

Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium offers unique features for professional production. Powerful new Speech Search in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 and Adobe Soundbooth CS4 uses spoken dialogue to make video searchable, significantly reducing the time spent searching for clips and creating rough cuts, and makes content searchable when delivered online. With deep XMP metadata support, the production workflow is simplified, resulting in online content that gives viewers new ways to interact with and search for video, while giving content owners new opportunities to track and monetize content. In addition, After Effects CS4 has enhanced support for Adobe Flash CS4 workflows providing new, powerful paths for creating compelling interactive content.

With Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium, Adobe strengthens its support for film and broadcast production, as well as extending its industry leadership in supporting efficient, tapeless, cross-platform workflows. Editors can work natively with RED, P2, XDCAM, and AVCHD without transcoding or rewrapping, giving them one of the fastest possible workflows to see what the camera captured without loss of fidelity. Adobe OnLocation CS4 enables the capture of DV, HDV and DVCPROHD footage directly to disk and offers powerful on-set clip annotation and metadata editing, then couples with Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 for a streamlined editorial workflow. For final output, Adobe Creative Suite 4 has powerful workflows for large and small screens, efficiently exporting to film, DVD, Web DVD, Blu-ray disc, the web and mobile devices.

Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium for Mac OS X on Intel® based systems and for Microsoft® Windows® XP and Windows Vista® platforms is scheduled to ship in October 2008. Estimated street price for the Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium edition is US$1699. Prices for upgrading to Creative Suite 4 Production Premium from CS3 will be US$599 and from previous versions will be US$799. For a limited time, licensed customers of any version of Adobe Production Studio are eligible for the US$599 upgrade price.

For more information go to http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/production.

PBS captured eight News and Documentary Emmy Awards at the ceremony in NMew York City, with its America at a Crossroads project earning two, both for Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience. Among other winners included P.O.V.'s Made in L.A., produced and directed by Robert Bahar and Almudena Carracedo, who have been tirelessly criss-crossing the globe with their film, long after its Labor Day 2007 airing. For a complete list of all the nominees, click here.
Here's a sampling of some of the News and Documentary nominees:

Outstanding Continuing Coverage of a News Story--Long Form
P.O.V. / PBS
Made in L.A.
Executive Producers: Sally Jo Fifer, Simon Kilmurry, Cara Mertes
Producer/Director: Almudena Carracedo
Producer: Robert Bahar

Outstanding Investigative Journalism--Long Form
Cinemax Reel Life / Cinemax
Have You Seen Andy?
Executive Producer: Sheila Nevins
Supervising Producer: Nancy Abraham
Producer/Director: Melanie Perkins

Outstanding Informational Programming--Long Form
America at a Crossroads / PBS
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
Director/Producer: Richard Robbins
Executive Producers: Jeff Bieber, Dalton Delan, Tom Yellin

Outstanding Historical Programming--Long Form
A Distant Shore: African Americans of D‑Day / History Channel
Executive Producers: Douglas Cohen, Dolores Gavin, Louis Tarantino

Producer: Samuel Dolan

Outstanding Arts and Culture Programming
FRONTLINE / PBS
The Undertaking
Executive Producers: David Fanning, Michael Sullivan
Producers/Directors: Miri Navasky, Karen O'Conner

Outstanding Science, Technology and Nature Programming
The Mysterious Human Heart / PBS
Executive Producer/Producer/Director: David Grubin
Executive Producer, Thirteen /WNET New York: Jared Lipworth
Executive Producers, WETA: Dalton Delan, Jeff Bieber
Producers: Tania Castellanos, Thomas Jennings, David Murdock
Co-Producer: Mica McCarthy

Best Documentary
Independent Lens / PBS
Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life
Producer/Director: Robert Levi
Producers: Joshua Blum, George Seminara
Executive Producer: Sally Jo Fifer

New Approaches to News & Documentary Programming: Documentaries
Uprooted / mercurynews.com
Executive Producers: Richard Hernandez, Geri Migielicz
Producer: Dai Sugano
Reporter: Julie Patel

Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Writing
National Geographic Special / National Geographic Channel
Incredible Human Machine
Writer: Chad Cohen

Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Research
American Experience / PBS
The Living Weapon
Researchers: Rich Remsberg, John Rubin

Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Cinematography--Nature Documentaries/Dramatic Recreations
Nature Tech: The Magic of Motion / Smithsonian Channel
Cinematographers: Tony Allen, Rudolph Erlach, Stefan Fischer, John Hadfield, Manfred Walzl

Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Cinematography--News Coverage/ Documentaries
Dan Rather Reports / HDNet
Cinematographer: Sean Fairburn

Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Editing
Breaking Point / Discovery Channel
Editors: Guy Federico, Bob Fahringer
How the Earth Was Made / History Channel
Editor: Huw Jenkins
Incredible Human Machine / National Geographic
Editor: Arthur Binkowski

Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Graphic Design & Artistic Direction
Inside the Living Body / National Geographic
Art Director: David Barlow
Computer Animator: Steven Gomez

Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Music and Sound
America at a Crossroads / PBS
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
Sound Editor: Glen Frazier
Re‑recording Mixer: Terrance Dwyer
Foley Artist: Monique Reymond
Sound Effects Editors: Sam Londé, Matthew Slivinski
Dialog Editors: David Ball, Vince Tennant

Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Lighting Direction and Scenic Design
NOVA / PBS
Forgotten Genius
Lighting Director and Scenic Designers: Gary Henoch, Katha Seidman

 

 

What with the woebegoings on Wall Street this week, one barely noticed the significant stirrings on the Web...
Let's start with SnagFilms, launched two months ago as an online distribution platform for docs, with the added dimension of encouraging viewers to snag a film and share it anywhere else on the Web. SnagFilms CEO Rick Ellen delivered the keynote address at this week's Independent Film Week in New York, proffering essentially a State of the Snag address.

Just in the past two months alone, according to a prepared statement, 10,000 online "theaters" have been opened for SnagFilms' 450 titles, SnagFilms' widgets have been seen more than 55 million times, and SnagFilms.com has had one million page views. Among SnagFilms' partners include Spout, the indie film community blog site, and Cinelan, the three-minute doc publisher. SnagFilms also owns indieWIRE, the indispensible nerve center of the indie community, which will be relaunching its website in time for the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. In addition, SnagFilms secured a $210,000 grant from the John S. and James l. Knight Foundation to "help filmmakers encode their movies for digital distribution, reduce streaming costs, identify and reach online audiences passionate about their topics, and secure necessary intellectual property rights."

And if all that's not enough, SnagFilms will premiere two documentaries simultaneously with the Hamptons International Film Festival in October: Haze, by Pete Schuermann, about the death of a Colorado University fraternity pledge due to alcohol poisoning, and The End of America, the latest from Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern (The Devil Comes on Horseback; The Trials of Darryl Hunt), which utilizes as its basis a lecture by writer Naomi Wolf on her best-selling book of the same name.

Bob Geldof, the long-running musician/activist behind so many global causes, just launched an online channel devoted to peace and global conflict resolution, according to a report in The Guardian. The Peace Channel will feature documentary work provided by acclaimed production company Brook Lapping, as well as video reports, online discussions and opportunities for user-generated content. The Peace Channel, which debuted last week at the Point of Peace Summit in Norway, is supported by Ten Alps, Geldof's media company; the Peace Channel Foundation; the Kids Rights Foundation; the World Trade Centres Association; and the Norwegian government.

The Swedish and UK based Web-TV company factualTV just launched a global platform dedicated to finding factual programming on specific interests. The company currently owns over 2,500 licensed titles of factual and lifestyle television and documentaries. The service is accessible on www.factualtv.com, and most of the titles are available by free, ad-funded streaming, and can also be downloaded in a higher quality through a pay-per-view option. "We are following the trend within traditional television towards ever more niched channels," said factualTV CEO Daniel Hill, in a statement. "We take this one step further by introducing specific thematic sections within our service FactualTV. These sections are marketed internationally over the Internet to the respective target groups."

Also from the UK is TrueTube, a platform for discussion and debate of social issues via uploaded videos from around the world. Not a recent launch, but worth checking out.

Independent film consultant has been preaching the gospel of alternative distribution for independent filmmakers for the better part of this decade, earning kudos and clients alike as the frontiers of Web 2.0 expand in the face of the diminishing returns of theatrical distribution. Here's Broderick's two-part treatise, published in indieWIRE in conjunction with IFP's Independent Film Week, as well as an earlier piece he penned for Documentary magazine.

Braced for a potential shortfall in attendance and an expected cut-back in sponsors, the 2009 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival was a trim, compact, efficient operation as it marked its 12th year. The last-minute loss of one of its major sponsors, The New York Times, was a disappointment, but when asked about the Times' drop-out, Festival Founder Nancy Buirski said, "Don't worry. They'll be back!"

Buirski stepped aside two years ago as director of the festival and is hip-deep in personal documentary production and curatorial projects under the umbrella of Augusta Films, LLC. Her successor, Peg Palmer, skillfully guided Full Frame through another successful year.

Films in competition numbered 59, down only two films from 2008. With the invited and curated titles, 100 films were presented.

Among the 40 titles I screened, Food Inc. will have the most impact on American audiences when it is released to theaters June 12. This trenchant look at how agri-business has taken over and corrupted our food supply is alarming. It's possible that an aroused populace, goaded by this effective, persuasive film, may pressure our legislators and regulators to correct some of the industry's most egregious practices: grossly crowded, mismanaged feed lots; unfair wages and working conditions for employees; cruel and unsanitary treatment of animals; and the outrageous practice of "patenting" the very seeds of our food supply (Monsanto's corn monopoly). Filmmaker Robert Kenner presents his arguments with a cutting, activist edge that loudly proclaims that this gross, wasteful industrialization of our food supply is not a healthy situation. The motto capsulated to promote this film rings resoundingly true: "You'll never look at dinner the same way."

Impressive as Food Inc. was, my favorite film at Full Frame was the world premiere of Owning the Weather, a first feature by Robert Greene. This fascinating work begins with a series of interviews that ask ordinary people what they would do if they could control the weather. Since we daily experience significant control of our smaller environments--home, car, office--we believe that, in a similar manner, we can control the global environment.   

Greene's balanced look at geo-engineering is loaded with startling, but little-known facts: Eighteen percent of the land mass in Texas is seeded with silver iodide particles to make rain...In Durango, Colorado, cloud-seeding by airplanes and cannons brings snow to area ski resorts...In "Operation Popeye" during the Vietnam War, the US seeded the clouds over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in an attempt to make it impassable, an act that led to an international treaty, still in effect, that pledges all signatories to never use weather as a weapon again..."Operation Storm Fury," an attempt by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to modify the intensity and direction of  hurricanes, was discontinued when legal questions arose about responsibility for collateral damage...

A major theme of Owning the Weather is, If we have screwed up nature already, can our attempts at geo-engineering on a global scale add to or subtract from the problems we face? This is a film that will spur vigorous discussion by those seriously concerned about the environment. 

A pair of films at Full Frame that had interesting parallels were an HBO-supported film by Liz Garbus, Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech, and a work by Sarah and Emily Kunstler, William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe, which Arthouse Films will release late summer or early fall. The Kunstler sisters made their film in an attempt to both honor and better understand their famous/infamous father and his championing of causes both popular and unpopular--the Chicago 8, Wounded Knee and Attica to name just three. The story is seen partially through their eyes as children as they lived through protests in front of their New York home and death threats against their father.

Garbus deploys her father, renowned First Amendment attorney Martin Garbus, with considerable skill to illustrate the importance of free speech, even when it is offensive. Her title comes from the famous Schenck decision of 1919 by Oliver Wendell Holmes, who stated that "shouting fire" in a theater (No mention is made by Holmes that the theater need be "crowded") would be an example of speech that can be limited and punished. Garbus uses a number of other examples to illustrate her treatise on "How Free Is Speech?"

The most haunting and unforgettable film for me was Unmistaken Child, an outstanding work by Israeli director Nati Baratz. The film follows the dedicated and selfless quest by a young Buddhist monk, Tenzin Zopa, as he searches for the signs and signals that will lead him to the reincarnated spirit of his Master, Lama Konchong. This spirit resides in the "unmistaken child" that Tenzin must identify and then lovingly separate from his parents and deliver to the Kopan monastery. Yaron Orbach's cinematography is stunning, the rapport with the subjects genuine, and Ron Goldman's editing effortless.

Justin Strawhand's War Against the Weak is a chilling look at the American Eugenics movement, supported by Ivy League scientists and funded by Carnegie, Rockefeller and Harriman money. It is astonishing to learn that it was this American Eugenics movement that provided most of the ideas that fueled Hitler and Joseph Mengele's barbaric and deadly eugenic experiments in Nazi Germany. What they did in the US will leave you shaken and angry.

Some other films worthy of comment were Andrew Lang's Sons of Cuba, a surprising and revealing look at Cuba through the eyes of the 12-year-old boys that make up the Havana Boxing Academy; Anna-Lydia Florin's Luber Aloft, which profiles the Swiss installation artist Heinrich Luber and his amazing public space works employing his own body in gravity-defying positions; Phie Ambo's Mechanical Love, a fascinating Danish film about therapeutic robotics like Paro, the mass-produced mechanical baby seal, and the exploration of geminoid robotics and its effect on family members of the experimenter.

The panel at Full Frame that caught my eye was "Wanted for Review." Moderated by Thom Powers, doc programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival, the panel featured Eugene Hernandez, co-founder and editor-in-chief of indieWIRE, and critic Ronnie Scheib of Variety. What Powers wants is to establish, increase and extend good, solid, thoughtful criticism of the documentary film form. He lamented that when he surveys critics' top ten lists, they often name just one token documentary or none at all, and few have any idea of the historical development of the form. The panel underscored a worsening situation: More docs are being produced while publications cut staff and space for reviews.

As might be expected, Hernandez offered the Internet as a possible solution, saying it empowered many voices to go with the exploding access to docs via TiVo, Nexflix, Amazon, iTunes, etc. He felt we were in a period when substantial critical voices would come forth, and he explained how indieWIRE is trying to develop a rudimentary monetary structure for serious doc bloggers and critical writers. In the end Powers challenged those present to pick three docs a year and write a 1500-to-4000-word blog on each of them. Perhaps some of us will respond. 

Ron Sutton is Professor Emeritus in the Visual Media Department of the School of Communication at American University.