Jammin' the Blues

Jammin' the Blues is a 1944 short film in which several prominent jazz musicians got together for a filmed jam session. It features Lester Young, Red Callender, Harry Edison, Marlowe Morris, Sid Catlett, Barney Kessel, Jo Jones, John Simmons, Illinois Jacquet, Marie Bryant, Archie Savage and Garland Finney. Barney Kessel is the only white performer in the film. He was seated in the shadows to shade his skin, and for closeups, his hands were stained with berry juice. 

Lester Young, as portrayed in the Robert Altman film, Kansas City (1996)

The film was directed by Gjon Mili. Producer Gordon Hollingshead was nominated for an Academy Award for this footage in the category of Best Short Subject, One-reel. The cinematography is by Robert Burks, the director of photography on many of Alfred Hitchcock’s films, including North by Northwest and Vertigo.

In 1995, Jammin' the Blues was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

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Amanda Duthie at the Austral Hotel

The Adelaide Film Festival has a new Director, Amanda Duthie. She comes to us following experience as a producer, executive producer, and series producer with ABC Television, where she used to be Content Head, Arts & Entertainment. 

During her time there, Amanda oversaw the production of many outstanding programs: The Gruen Transfer, Spicks and Specks, At the Movies, First Tuesday Book Club, Artscape, Tim Minchin vs the SSO, Stephen Fry Live at the Sydney Opera House, Mrs Carey’s Concert, Hidden Treasures with Betty Churcher and Tasmanian Devil – The Fast and Furious Life of Errol Flynn. She also has experience with Screen NSW, National Museum of Australia, and SBS TV.

Amanda will be sharing her vision for the 2013 Adelaide Film Festival, and her insights for writers, in The Bunka at the Austral Hotel (205 Rundle Street, Adelaide), on Wednesday 28 March 2012, at 7.30pm. 
Door price is $10. Audience members will have an opportunity to ask questions.

Link for AWG members

Startup Launch Videos

Some of you think short films and webseries are just for practice, ahead of you being invited to Steven Spielberg's house for a few beers. No. They have other uses. More profitable uses.

One of those is as a launch vehicle for setting up a new company. Here are some examples.

Michael Dubin. This guy started a business with a video. It received over a million views in under a week. The Dollar Shave Club.

Tim Schafer. This guy set out to raise $400,000 to make a computer game. He got over a $1million in the first 24 hours. When I last looked, it was over $2.6million, with three days to go. Thanks to this video.



 Nosh. What's good here? A restaurant app for your phone. This video sold it.

 
See? You could do stuff like that, too. Right?

"Western X"

At last, a western webseries. Called Western X.

A man struggles to find out the truth behind his identity while fighting an evil army.

Yep, it's an amnesia/alternative reality/supernatural/western. No zombies, vampires or pandas, though. Sorry.

On the plains of a desert wasteland, a man known only as X is on the verge of death. Among a pile of dead bodies he awakens, with no memories of his past and hunted by an unknown enemy, he struggles to uncover the truth behind his identity; this is the beginning of his journey. Each episode uncovers some truth about who he is and sheds light on the strange world he finds himself in. 

Written, directed and produced by Michael Flores, Western X tells of a mysterious traveler with major memory loss, who must walk the wastelands of a western world in search of the truth about himself.

Here's Episode 1.

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Wes Anderson directs commercials

The Royal Tenenbaums is one of my favourite movies. It was written and directed by Wes Anderson, a guy with a unique sensibility. I wasn't quite as thrilled by Bottle Rocket, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, or The Darjeeling Limited, though Rushmore was an interesting film. 

So what? Well, Wes Anderson has been directing commercials lately. They are very... Wes Anderson-ish.

Here's one for a car. A quiet car.

Here's another for a car you can talk to, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang-style.

Here's a commercial he made with Roman Coppola for Stella Artois beer.

Here is Wes Anderson's 2007 "Reporter" ad for AT&T. 

Here's one Wes Anderson made in 2008 with Brad Pitt. It's a commercial for Japanese cell phones, which takes Jacques Tati's Mr Hulot's Holiday as inspiration.

And last, but not least, here is Wes Anderson himself. He starred in and directed this American Express commercial, which chronicled the "filming" of an action movie starring Jason Schwartzman. Anderson acts as if he is being interviewed by someone from American Express for the ad, while walking around completing tasks on set, a scene paying homage to the movie Day for Night by Francois Truffaut.

"Lessons for the Living"

Here's something different, a trailer for a film called Lessons for the Living. 

Moving through New York City's fast-pace, life often seems a blur. Yet, within this city, a group of people quietly seek solace by spending time with the dying. Lessons for the Living reveals a unique subculture of Hospice volunteers as they reflect on their experiences and philosophies of life and death. Among them, a teenager escapes from the drama of high school, a hard-edged corporate lawyer searches for meaning and a terminally ill woman faces her own death with unexpected humor and grace. As the baby boomer generation nears its end, this film offers a timely look at what it means to face death. Lessons for the Living shows that the dying have a great deal to offer the living.

Lessons for the Living was made by Lily Henderson (director/editor), Ed David (cinematographer), Alex Ramirez-Mallis (2nd camera), Leslie Koren (producer) and Shani Hashaviah (producer). They are members of the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective.

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Andrew Stanton: The clues to a great story

Andrew Stanton wrote the first film produced entirely on a computer, Toy Story. What made that film a classic wasn't the history-making graphic technology, it was the story and the characters that children around the world instantly accepted into their own lives. 

Stanton wrote all three Toy Story movies at Pixar Animation Studios, where he was hired in 1990 as the second animator on staff. He has two Oscars, as the writer-director of Finding Nemo and WALL-E. His adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs fantasy-adventure John Carter, opens in cinemas in March.

The following video runs for nineteen minutes. It consists of a speech Andrew Stanton made to the TED Conference in February 2012.

If you have any level of interest in screenwriting, or if you wondered about the theme of Lawrence of Arabia, you MUST watch this video.

(My thanks to Brian McDonald for telling me about it.)