We’re trying to free up some space here so we’re putting up a few items for sale.

16mm Magnetic film recorder/reproducer – $250 (Manchester, NH) – converts recorded audio to 16mm Magstock. Works great; Gemini CD player with ‘pitch control’ & all wiring included.

Here’s the link to Craigslist or let me know directly at bill@backlotfilm.com if you’re interested (or have any questions), thanks.

For me, viewing the films of Wim Wenders is similar to the morning coffee. I take his films for granted just like I do having coffee every morning. 

But I shouldn’t. 

As most independent filmmakers know, it’s very easy to get discouraged about filmmaking these days.  There are still plenty of local and national filmmakers whom I’d admire and who are forever pushing the boundaries of what a truly independent film can accomplish. They create their films because they need to – their film is their vision. It’s a very serious matter and the burden of their film rests solely on their shoulders; there’s no handouts; it wasn’t produced as part of a gimmick nor is its goal to win an award at a local film festival. These filmmakers are doing all they can within their powers to craft works that, for all intent and purpose, will last longer than they will. 

I’ll always tip my hat to this kind of filmmaking. 

Yet far too much of today’s local filmmaking has evolved into an endless assortment of one gimmick-drenched contest after another – 48 hour film festivals, PSA contests, screenwriting contests, city & state-endorsed film festivals and so forth.

I’m still waiting for the inevitable Best Buy Film Festival where you purchase you camcorder at the store and then shoot, edit and screen your film before you get into your car in the parking lot. 

Yet, no matter how much these filmmaking has changed since we produced our first feature in 1996 I can always return to a Wenders film and be reminded as to why I continue to make films. 

Wenders’ work remains consistently unique, delicate, honest and drenched in culture.

Plots sometimes start when they shouldn’t and have endings which catch you off guard.

Shots frequently last longer than we’re accustomed to; especially static shots.

Consider his 1975 film ‘Wrong Move’. It has none of the breathtaking qualities of his two 1980’s masterpieces ‘Paris, Texas’ and ‘Wings of Desire’. It’s not terribly involving as the four main characters are all a bit unlikely and a bit cold.

Yet we keep watching.

It’s not visually appealing; no one shot or backdrop stays with you.

Yet we continue to watch.

Then, as the film concludes, all the parts come together very memorably and we’re, of course, very glad that we stuck through the full running time. Maybe it’s because we’ve seen characters and settings such as these ourselves? I’m not sure. We too as people are often cold and unlikable. Wenders doesn’t sugarcoat anything and his films certainly march to their own beat.

And perhaps most importantly, the only thing that matters is the film’s 103 minutes – and nothing else.

I’ll never turn off a music documentary. Whether it’s an obvious classic like The Last Waltz or The Kids Are Alright or a more recent production like Wilco’s I Am Trying To Break Your Heart documentaries focusing on musicians and their unique stories always seem to get heavy rotation in our DVD player.

And there’s been no shortage of quality music documentaries the past few years. Ones I’ve been able to catch include Tom Petty’s Runnin’ Down a Dream, The Clash’s Westway to the World, Joe Strummer’s The Future is Unwritten, Billy Bragg & Wilco’s Man in the Sand, Bruce Springsteen’s Wings For Wheels: The Making of Born to Run, The Who’s Amazing Journey,  Bob Dylan’s No Direction Home and Ronnie Lane’s The Passing Show. 

A few days ago my wife Valerie and I viewed the 2004 Gandulf Hennig documentary, Fallen Angel, detailing the life of Gram Parsons. As with the Ronnie Lane film this was especially refreshing. Though I’ve always been a big Parsons fan I wasn’t familiar with much of the documentary’s content/footage. There’s something special about a film which brings re-newed interest in the life and music of an artist who hasn’t been documented all that well before. And that was definitely the case with both the Ronnie Lane and Gram Parsons films.

Music has influenced my filmmaking as much as film has. And it goes without saying that there many artists, both local & national, that definitely fall into the awesome documentary waiting to happen category. So many musicians are deserving of an in-depth documentary so their unique story can be told. Maybe one of these days, once I complete some of my pending projects, I’ll try my luck with a music documentary. After all, I live in Fremont, New Hampshire - home to the legendary Shaggs…

I have to thank my friend, filmmaker Jeff Palmer, for the heads-up on this one - a very candid article from the New York Times on the reality of independent filmmaking (i.e. most of the time for a indie filmmaker, if you really want to get your film made, you’re going to have to use a lot of your own cash). The story focuses on ‘White Irish Drinkers’, the upcoming film by John Gray. Click here to read the article. 

Even by Nugent’s low standards of dependable lunacy mixed with over-the-top macho posturing (not to mention lousy music) the Motor City Madman may have even topped himself in a recent interview. How classic rock stations can still play any of his music in good conscience is beyond me. Here’s the link  - our next feature-length film, the anti-hunting black comedy Death & Glory,can’t start production soon enough… 

I need to thank my friend, filmmaker Todd Norwood, for bringing this informative article on self-distribution D.I.Y. (‘do it yourself”) to my attention. It’s entitled “Declaration of Indies: Just Sell It Yourself” and it was published in the January 17, 2010 issue of the New York Times. The writer, Manohla Dargis, does a nice job of chronicling the various self-distribution strategies that filmmakers have employed through the years, from John Cassavetes to Sacha Gervasi. Click here to read the article.

Image via Wikipedia

A few things I learned from Directed by John Ford, Peter Bogdanovich’s fascinating 2006 recut of his 1971 documentary on the legendary director:

• Ford didn’t like rehearsing; he thought a scene could go stale quickly and often used first takes.
• Ford didn’t like dialogue and would eliminate as many words as possible from a script.
• Because he didn’t edit his own films Ford would be careful to not shoot too much coverage as he feared this would leave studio editors too many shots to pick from which could easily destroy Ford’s shot sequence.
• A basic Ford directing principle was to never place the skyline in the middle of the frame.  
• A Ford set wasn’t the most pleasant place; the director enjoyed to humiliate actors in front of the cast/crew if he thought it was necessary to get a point across.
• Maybe it was all an ‘act’ but Ford, at least in public, was a grumpy and not particularly pleasant person.
• Ford was very modest when asked about his astonishing body of work and the indisputable influence it’s had on filmmakers for decades.

I’m really enjoying working on my short story book The Winter Thaw. These are my locations, towns, roads, etc. Upbeat or depressing, traditional or weird, first or third person narrative, it doesn’t matter…

Franklin Pierce, UFOs, Abandoned Gas Stations, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Depot Road…

Compared to the unnecessary gimmicks and politics that have overtaken much of  local filmmaking writing this book feels very refreshing. It reminds me as to why I decided to get involved in the arts in the first place, more than twenty years ago.

Almost makes me want to keep my film gear on the shelf a bit longer…

As we approach 2010 I find myself, like most folks this time of the year, seemingly extra-busy on all fronts. However, I’ve been doing my best to stay focused on the following projects:

1. The Winter Thaw – a collection of my short-stories that will hopefully be completed/released in the next few months. 
2. A Beginning’s Guide to Producing, Distributing & Marketing Your Independent Film. Co-authored by Marc Vadeboncoeur of Goodheart Media Services (who was DP on our 2005 feature Dangerous Crosswinds), this is an updated version of the previously released handbook to our Digital Filmmaking Workshops. We’re shooting for a spring 2010 release. 
3. Old Man Dogs DVD re-issue. Work has been completed on a new sound remix from the film’s original magstock masters and Wickham Strub (the film’s DP) will soon be color correcting the new digital transfer taken from the original 16mm negative.
4. Looking Back at Old Man Dogs, I’m currently editing this 90-minute documentary which will accompany the DVD re-issue. I shot close to a dozen interviews back in the summer of 2008 with various cast/crew, so far so good…
5. Death & Glory screenplay.
6. The Murder of the Lake screenplay. The current plan/goal is to shoot both Death & Glory & The Murder of the Lake back-to-back once the scripts have been completed.

I apologize for sounding like a broken record as these projects have been kicking around far longer than I would have hoped. But between increased time on the family front and the usual corporate video work that my company produces completing any or all will always remains a challenge. But I’m definitely looking forward to trying…

The two feature films I’ve directed so far were both shot on different formats. Old Man Dogs (1997) was photographed on 16m film and projected on a film release print in theaters. Dangerous Crosswinds (2005) was shot on 24P mini-dv tapes and projected on DVD into theaters. For me, and probably the crews of both films, it’s impossible to think of either film without also thinking of its particular shooting format. For most low-budget indies the format is forever linked to the project as much as the music or actors, etc. And that’s fine. We slave over our production budgets and ultimately decide that we’ll shoot in whatever format we can best afford. That’s the reality.

But does it matter at all to audiences? As long as a film is well lit and the dialogue sounds good I’m not really sure it does. It’s not that I don’t believe film-goers can notice a visual difference (I’m sure they can if a side-by-side comparison is made) but do they care? Would the various critical responses to both films had been any different had Old Man Dogs been shot digitally and Dangerous Crosswinds on 16mm? I’m willing to bet no. Any Q&A session that I’ve ever been a part of has always focused on the film’s storytelling, music, themes, and so forth – and nothing about any technical matters. Michael Moore’s Roger & Me is a 16mm film and his latest films have all been digital but he’s all about content. And even though we may think otherwise, most narrative filmmakers like myself are first and foremost about content. The subject matter, the characters, the music – these factors dwarf any technical factors. Not to mention that good old fashioned believeable acting goes a long way in my book. I recently saw a trailer for a well-publicized short film which was shot with a RED camera but the acting was so over-the-top that it destroyed any of my interest in ever seeing the film. Good direction/strong acting shot on videotape is still preferable to aimless direction/bad acting shot on film.