Microcinema DVDs - Warriors of the Discotheque

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Microcinema DVDs - Warriors of the Discotheque

Starck film- Where do things stand now?

I initiated this campaign  http://www.indiegogo.com/Warriors-of-the-Discotheque-The-Starck-Documentary because while the short film has done quite well https://www.createspace.com/273024 or  http://www.amazon.com/Warriors-Discotheque-Starck-Club-Documentary/dp/B002ZZQY4E there's still money on the table so to speak. In our efforts to secure funding for the feature length doc, as well as development for a feature film or episodic TV project, we've come across some road blocks. Primarily, it seems not having Blake Woodall on our team thus far has prevented some in Dallas from really stepping up and backing this project. I get the sense that many are sitting on the sidelines waiting magically for another, better film to emerge from the ether, just straight out of thin air... For more details on the back story go here: http://thenightstalkintippytoe.blogspot.com/2009/09/starck-club-documentary-saga-or-how.html or here: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-starck_30met.ART.Central.Edition1.3cc8951.html

The fact is this: It is now over a year since the other Starck film was announced and yet nothing has transpired...  The bottom line is these folks made a big deal to step on our toes when OUR film, THE ONLY film about Starck was screened at USA Film Fest in Dallas. If these two are so eager to make a film, then where the fuck is their film???

I understand and applaud what Mr. Cain has done with the Dallas International Film Fest, as he's helped put that fest, and by extension Dallas, in the top tier for film venues. But, he schedules the festival only a few weeks before the much older, more established USA Film Fest. As if to make up for it, he then posts the USA schedule on his facebook page... Oh, gee thanks Mikey! 

Look fellow Starckers, if you want the Starck Club get the full on treatment it deserves then by all means let's make it happen! We have the experience, talent, and manpower to do a great doc for very little resources, BUT we need some resources... please help us w/ a micro contribution or just spread the word around, whatever you can do. I've seen one Kickstarter campaign raise 30K, another 15K,  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1231856438/goodbye-promise-an-exploratory-feature-film (in the ball bark of what we need!) This can be done but we need YOU!!!!!!!! We can't sit around WAITING FOR SOMEONE ELSE TO TELL OUR STORY!!!!!!

But, not only that... Not only we do need some resources, but this is also a bellweather as to how the film would be received commercially. I mean, if we can barely raise 500 bucks the first time around http://www.indiegogo.com/Warriors-of-the-Discotheque-The-Starck-Club-Documentary , and not even garner a single red penny thus far, the second time around. http://www.indiegogo.com/Warriors-of-the-Discotheque-The-Starck-Documentary What would a potential distributor think of the commercial prospects of such a film? Obviously, they'd be very, very weak. Not only is this about raising resources, but also about raising profile. Currently, Indie gogo is working with MTV new media on finding new and interesting projects. Could you imagine a better partner for the Starck film than MTV? I certainly can't, but it will be very difficult to get their attention if we can't even raise a single penny! Not to mention guys, despite the economic woes, the average Starcker is of PRIME earing age, in the primeof their careers. We're talking 10, 20 bucks here, more if you can afford it. We need you guys, we really do. This is the last hurrah for me. If we can't make any significant progress then I'll put together a decent DVD package with what I've got, send it out to those who've supported us, and call it a day as I'm on the cusp of some other projects. It's up to you!

So, join Ashley Arrington, Britton Schweitzer, Amy Allen, Brian Erzen, Lisa Trammell Wichman, Michael Albala, Joan A Wall, Douglass Martin, David Bradley, Scott Pellet, Brian Erzen, Pamela Scrima, David Bradley, Kristina Bowman, and Shannon Pumajero THANK YOU ALL! This can be done, we've already made a quality short film for next to nothing, now let's take the next step.

http://www.indiegogo.com/Warriors-of-the-Discotheque-The-Starck-Documentary

Bringing the Audience in....

As some of you may already know we've started a crowd fund raising campaign via Indiegogo http://www.indiegogo.com/Warriors-of-the-Discotheque-The-Starck-Club-Documentary for Warriors of the Discotheque: The Starck Club Documentary. Thus far it's been pretty slow going but certainly some encouraging signs w/ both the campaign and sales for the short film on both createspace and amazon and VOD!


We'd hoped to raise more money to get to Dallas and shoot more interviews and so forth. Luckily, we have a lot of great stuff already and the current goal is to just get enough to pay an editor and release the rest of the out takes online. In something of a step w/ the times and such concepts as ARG (Alternate Reality Gaming) in which you engage your audience in such a way as to get them to participate in the ultimate outcome of your game, film, art exhibit etc. We're going to put a series of out takes from the film and let you guys decide which pieces we should include in the longer version. There are some fantastic segments on all sorts of elements of the Starck club and I can't wait to share some of them w/ you guys.

It's obvious that ecstasy and coke and drag queens and all sorts of crazy stuff was a part of the fabric of the club, but it was so much more than that as well. If you looked at nothing more than the design contribution of Philippe Starck and how the Starck set the tone for the modern night club. Or, the ushering in of the new wave music scene in the early/ mid 80's. As the film exists now we've definitely touched on the key cornerstones of the Club's significance. It's the extra resources that would allow us the ability to really expound on what made Starck so unique!

New campaign on Indie gogo

I wrote about the so called dualing Starck docs awhile back, you can read about it here: http://thenightstalkintippytoe.blogspot.com/2009/09/starck-club-documentary-saga-or-how.html The bottom line is while there is a quality short film that exists on the club there still does not exist a full treatment befitting the majesty of the Starck Club! It was my hope that the short film would whip up a bit more support by now, primarily an investor who would step up and help us get the feature doc done by now. Unfortunately, that has not been the case.

Now, one of two things can happen... If you are a fan of the club, you can sit around and wait until the suits, the ones who defintely do have the money, see fit to put a little of that money where their mouths are and invest a bit of their own income into said film they said they were going to make about a year ago... OR, you can step up and make a micro contribution to those who've already demonstrated their chops by making it happen! We have a new fan page up here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Warriors-of-the-Discotheque-The-Starck-Club-Documentary/10150143837935623?ref=ts If we could reach the magical 1,000 mark like both the Starck Club Revisited and The Starck Project pages, then say theoretically everyone on that list kicked in $20. This would be enough to shoot more footage, acquire more music and stock footage, finish the edit for an 80-90 minute feature documentary AND ALLOW EVERY CONTRIBUTOR THEIR OWN COPY OF THE COMPLETED FILM!!!!!!!!!

You see this is not a donation, this is not a loan, rather this is a pre-order for the completed film! It's really that simple, all you have to do is tell all your pals about our fan page and our campaign and kick in $20. Even in these trying economic times that's a reasonable investment. Even if we don't get the full amount we need we still have RIGHT NOW AS I WRITE, enough footage to double the length of the film and put together  some cool out takes. All we need is some dough to pay an editor! In fact, you get a film no matter what. It seems a pretty good deal no matter how you slice it. Here's an out take just posted recently: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xlig4SGq_MQ More to follow soon...

Pink Floyd's The Wall LIVE!!!!

Pink Floyd was, of course, a legendary band for many reasons. One is the storied meltdown of founding member Syd Barret, presumably from a few too many fresh dipped doses. Also, the complexity, progression and innovation of the band's oeuvre created an almost cult like devotion. From the early Umma Gumma and Meddle unto Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Here, Animals, and culminating in The Wall. (I won't mention the early works of Saucerful of Secrets et al because it seems to me it's not really the Pink Floyd we'd come to know, nor are the later works because Roger Waters is no longer present. Yes, I know they did The Final Cut in '83 but I'd put an asterisk on that one.) Combine that w/ awe inspiring live performances, the design of the stage shows became the Industry standard, and the bands absolute refusal to sell out. Many of their records were made without any eye toward singles, radio, compilation records (as much as I love the Stones they abuse the shit out of that one) or music promo videos, etc.

The band did a couple of fairly limited tours of the states in support of Dark Side Of The Moon, then much more significant tours in '75 and the In the Flesh tour supporting Animals in '77 which was legendary for both it's size and scope and overall theatrics. (The last time Pink Floyd performed a major worldwide tour with Roger Waters, it featured the famous character inflatable puppets, a pyrotechnic "waterfall" and one of the biggest and most elaborate stages to date, including umbrella-like canopies that would raise from the stage to protect the band from the elements. Here's little sample from the Oakland show, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6U0YVZbQ4s Gilmour and Snowy White are just on fire- White was second guitarist on this and Wall performances.) It was on this run through the States that the seeds of The Wall germinated in the form of the 'infamous' spitting incident! Waters was chronically annoyed that fans would make so much racket when they did their more quiet improvisational jams. Waters spit on some fans who lit fireworks during their number. He then started writing a piece about a rock star alienated by his fans, enough so to build a 'Wall' separating him from his audience. Of course, Waters was a cynical chap to begin with, just listen to the lyrics of "Have a Cigar". Not exactly a glowing view of the music biz nor Hollywood in general!

The Wall was released in the fall of 1979, but a limited tour was in the works. Both Gilmour and Nick Mason tried to convince Waters to do a full blown tour of the US and Europe but Roger thought it hypocritical given the subject matter of the record, so instead they decided on New York (Nassau County Coliseum- near my birth place), Los Angeles Sports Arena, London Earls Court, and in early 1981 Dortmund, Germany. (Waters and Richard Wright were no longer on speaking terms, in fact, on both the record and tour Wright was contracted just as a hired hand, not a full band member.)

There's almost no real quality documentation of this tour, thus it has become the holy grail if you will of concert lore. In fact, the legend of the shows was every bit as intriguing as the reality. I don't how many times I'd listened to the The Wall in a dorm room and be regaled by some story of someone who saw the actual show and how they built up the Wall in the background (only partially true), then blew it up at the end (not true)! The concert was filmed professionally at Earls Court, you can get a copy here http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000HGA5PM but it was determined by the band as not up to snuff for official, commercial release. Roger Waters was credited as having conceived of and directed the potential concert film. It was an amazingly elaborate production but was plagued by very poor lighting, as Waters limitations as a filmmaker were immediately evident. If Waters had kicked his ego to the curb and just hired a real filmmaker to document this wonderous event we'd have a fantastic concert film, but this is not the case! There also exists a real ghetto copy of the Nassau County show that looks like it was shot by a fan on a super 8 camera.

On the particular DVD copy I saw of the Earl's Court show, it seems to be sourced from a reasonably good VHS tape. The credits are professionally done against the white brick motif of the album cover and then we fade to black as the PA announcer welcomes the crowd and asks they not light any fireworks, tape record the show, etc. etc. (Those pesky fireworks! Waters really has a thing about that.) Anyhow, the show starts as the band goes into In the Flesh, The Thin Ice, Another Brick in the Wall pt1, etc. A band of session musicians play the first song, wearing rubber face masks taken from the real band members, then backed up the band for the remainder of the show. At first you don't get a full appreciation of just how massive the stage is until they go into Another Brick in The Wall. They cut to a wide shot of the stage, again this is where the lighting issue really comes into play. The tighter shots of the band are well it, but as we pull wider it becomes very difficult to get a feel for the size of the stage. It is about a 70 foot rendition of the wall that appears to be on a pulley so it can be put together and wheeled apart. In the center, behind the wall a large semi circular light structure. Throughout the show various puppets, inflatable pigs, and other characters from The Wall art work on the inner jacket and sleeve designed by Mark Fisher and Gerald Scarfe appear during various numbers. At one point before the song Vera a miniature Airplane crashes into the Wall. It appears quite a bit of effort and thought was put into the conceptualization of the entire concert experience of The Wall. In fact, The New York Times wrote: "The 'Wall' show remains a milestone in rock history though and there's no point in denying it. Never again will one be able to accept the technical clumsiness, distorted sound and meager visuals of most arena rock concerts as inevitable" and concluded that "the 'Wall' show will be the touchstone against which all future rock spectacles must be measured."

It's also rumored that about $1.5 million was spent on staging the concert even before the first performance, which just begs the question: Why not hire real filmmakers w/ 35mm cameras and lighting gear and do it right. Of course, the Alan Parker film came out some three years later so that may have impacted the band's decision. Roger Waters has given conflicted answers on the status of the concert film stating from "trying to locate this footage for historical purposes but was unsuccessful and considers it to be lost forever" to "I have all of the film but am reluctant to release". While the show we do see is far from perfect, it is well worth getting a copy of. The performance itself is fantastic and well worth checking out for that alone. Water's put on The Wall years later in 1990 to coincide with coming down of the Berlin Wall w/ many a special guest star, and while it's not Pink Floyd it was at least well shot and lit. The rest of the band (sans Waters) came together again in 1987 for a tour of North America and this DVD is a fantastic presentation of their 3 night stand in Atlanta. The source is Betacam SP and looks immaculate!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0041MUS7I

Pink Floyd toured several more times w/o Waters and finally did a short stint in '05 as a complete band again in a show in London. Anyone who is reading this blog entry and has seen Pink Floyd anytime between 1968-1980 please contact me as I'd be very eager to include you in a more extensive project I'm working on about the band!

Steve Martin, the Duplass Brothers, and who says what's good!

I remember watching Steve Martin on Charlie Rose sometime last year promoting his autobiography. Right away, I was on the same page w/ him as he mentioned he enjoyed reading biographies but was always frustrated that important details would be glossed over. Say, in the case of an entertainer, it would be mentioned about some huge break or opportunity but never the details of how said "big break" came about. This has always been my beef w/ these such endeavors and I'm w/ Martin 100%. It's almost as if these folks want us to believe they were struck w/ lightning on Mt. Zeus and came as fully formed demi gods!

Martin went on to say he's frequently asked the question, "What's the best way to make it in the entertainment business?" He explains his answer is always the same, however none too popular. He speculates people want to hear, 'it's about getting the right agent' or 'networking and knowing the right people,' etc. His response is, "you have to be so good, you simply can not be denied!" This is so obvious in way, but it's a statement that really packs a punch...

Along these lines, filmmaker Mark Duplass was recently on David Branin and Karen Worden's show Film Courage, listen here http://filmcourage.podbean.com/2009/10/19/filmmaker-mark-duplass-on-la-talk-radios-film-courage/. Again Duplass makes a statement very similar to Steve Martin's, "Filmmakers should put all their time and energy into making good films!" He goes on to state in his theory that there is such a lack of really quality material, especially on the festival circuit that, "you can leave you film in a drawer and eventually someone will find it". Duplass continues to say that many big festival programmers he's spoken with over the years say they have trouble filling their 60 slots w/ really good short films. He goes on to say that many folks create these labyrinthine conspiracy theories about how you have to "know someone" to get into a major festival like Sundance. In his words, it's just an excuse to massage the battered egos of filmmakers whose films weren't good enough to make the cut and hence rejected from said festivals. Obviously, Mark Duplass and Steve Martin are on to something. Make sure you're damn good before you start shouting from the rooftops! But, there is a slight caveat here and that is: Who says what is and isn't good?

In the case of Steve Martin, there's no question he is and has been a huge talent for decades. His first film The Jerk was a huge, bona fide hit as well as being LOL, piss in your pants funny! But what about pre-jerk Steve Martin? The dorky guy who'd come on SNL in the '70's w/ the banjo and stupid looking rabbit ears? I've gone back and watched some of that stuff on youtube 'cause I was too young to see it live. Piss in your pants funny? Not so much, at least not to me. And what if a guy just like me was casting or directing The Jerk? Ya know, Martin's okay but I much prefer Danny Ackroyd or Bill Murray for that part... Would Steve Martin still ending up being a star? Probably, if not the Jerk, then another chance would've come.

Now, what about the Duplass Brothers? As Mark makes clear their film This is John (about a hapless fella played by Mark who has almost a personal crisis leaving an outgoing message on his answering machine,) getting into 2004's Sundance film festival absolutely made their careers. I've seen the film a few times on the DVD of their first feature, The Puffy Chair. It's funny, my girlfriend laughed out loud a few times at Mark's antics, I liked it... at about 4 minutes... the problem is the film's 8 minutes, and the joke starts to get a bit stale. Mark D so much as said the film was poorly shot, poorly lit, and sound was very dicey. I'll throw in I thought the film would have been much better shorter. Not exactly so good it can't be denied. Another short on the DVD, Scrapple, I think is a much, much better film. Brilliant performances by the two leads, funny, poignant, and real. What about the feature film itself, The Puffy Chair? In the Film Courage interview Mark Duplass said repeatedly that distributors, "loved" the film but didn't know how to market it. The film had a DIY theatrical release and DVD was through Red Envelope and Village Roadshow. Every time I heard people "loved" the film I had to cringe a bit. It took me three times to get through the film, and then eventually w/ the FF working through a big chunk of it. Mark Duplass is a funny, charismatic guy, but like nothing happens in this film for close to 40 minutes. We spend a good chunk of the film staring at a guy with short buzz cut and long beard, who's staring at a nature show about a Salamander or lizard of some sort. I'm sorry but a bunch of people sitting around blowing bong hits talking about "life" unfiltered through any artistic precision makes for a difficult viewing experience. As a matter of fact, some 10 years prior this was the punch line for the type of crappy film that was flooding Sundance in the mid 90's... A decade later this type of film would be at the forefront of the whole 'mumble core' movement. Bottom line: The Puffy Chair and it's ilk are hardly the kind of films that are so good they can't be denied.

Furthermore, in my view Alex Holdridge's In Search of a Midnight Kiss, Ben Cocio's Zero Day, and Unica's Blue in Green are much, MUCH better examples of the minimalist, character based material that folks like the Duplass Brothers and Joe Swanberg have vomited up over the years. (Sorry, Matt Dentler!) I'm willing to bet any amount of money that if the Duplass' put their DVD in a drawer and someone found it years later the reaction more likely would be 'oh, some guys just messing around w/ their camcorder' than 'oh my, I better rush this over to the Sundance, AFI, and MoMA!' As far as I'm concerned, an Oscar winning screenwriter from years ago said it best, "nobody knows anything" in this business. How true!

Where's that confounded audience part 2!!!

This is a follow up to my post on finding your (confounded) audience. So, I suggest you read this first http://thenightstalkintippytoe.blogspot.com/2009/10/wheres-that-confounded-audience.html before delving into this. I made reference to the fact that I'd always been suspicious of the whole DIY model because invariably every success story I was aware of had a huge leg up from traditional media sources... that is until I heard about the success of INK. Now, I will amend that a bit because there have been some successful DIY cases before INK such as Lance Weiler's The Last Broadcast, which was made and distributed entirely in the digital realm and supposedly has grossed 4 million. As well as Four Eyed Monsters by Arin Crumley and Susan Buice which made use of video podcasts and sophisticated online marketing techniques to drive their film to financial success. You can get details on how they did it here
http://powertothepixel.com/news/arin-crumley-susan-buice-at-power-to-the-pixel-in-london

Now, the reason I can relate to INK, is because it follows a more traditional model. (I was also a huge fan of Alex Holdridge's In Search of A Midnight Kiss, which I thought was a much better film than all those mentioned thus far. However, because it was released by IFC Films and got an Ex Lax release it didn't catch fire like some of these other films did.) Crumley and Buice were essentially able to build and cultivate an audience thru their video pod casts in 2005. Weiler now refers to himself as a "story architect" and was and is able to incorporate audience interaction in his work, much like the 4 Eyed crew did w/ the podcasts. At one point one of the fans who'd shown up at a screening of 4 Eyed literally said, "it doesn't matter how the film is because I'm so invested in these two from the podcasts." The film literally takes a back seat to the shill!!! This is somewhat troublesome to me, but on the other hand, what's the alternative?

I suppose we need to go backwards a few decades. In the early to mid 80's when the whole video revolution really started to take off, there was such a demand for product that some amateurish producers were making a nice living off their back yard epics. As the story goes if you had a slasher flick, tits and tires, and/or combo of all the above that was of even a modicum of quality you were able to put a down payment on a house! By the time I got into the film game in the mid 90's the market had matured quite a bit, but some SOV (shot on video) films were still doing well. But, primarily it was all about the Indie lottery sweepstakes: make a scrappy Indie, get into a quality festival, sell said film to distributor, get an agent, start writing scripts and making films for the big boys... You know the films and filmmakers: El Mariachi, Clerks, Slacker, Laws of Gravity, Following, etc. etc. Despite what any filmmaker would tell you about the "indie lifestyle" and the passion etc. the fact is everyone was shooting for this goal. And in accordance, there was an explosion of films and filmmakers wanting to get in on the action. And in response to that you had a plethora of film festivals sprouting up all over the country to accommodate all these budding filmmakers.

By the time we get to this current decade, and all that hedge fund money sloshing around wall street starting to fund Indiewood, and all the XL1 and Panasonic dvx 100's flying off the shelves, and the wanna be Coppola's, and all the film festivals you get the pretty clear picture there's a major glut of product. A MAJOR GLUT OF FILMS AND FILMMAKERS! Of course, a lot of quality films have made it through the festival/indie distributor pipeline, but more and more quality films were getting shut out of the party. Or, even worse, if you had a quality film that got into a top notch festival, because of the glut of films, the distrib's can afford to make paltry offers. Filmmakers were and are being forced to take the bend over deal. My friend Jonas Ball's (he played Mark Chapman, Andrew Piddington directed) film The Killing of John Lennon being a prime example. The film was made for about 1 million, took several years to shoot, 10x better than the Jared Leto crapfest Chapter 27, but got a weak deal from IFC Films, lousy one week in LA and NYC, on to ppv, vod, dvd, etc. etc. Doubtful the filmmakers will see a dime! And it's a very common story. In my own case, my film The Real Casino http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000R900PO/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used has gone similar travails in the distribution game. After airing on IFC/Bravo, PBS, and a bunch of festivals I signed a couple different deals. One w/ a really lousy rinky dink outfit called Sub Rosa Studios or SRS Cinema. They specialize in cheesy horror titles and although they did a great job w/ the DVD cover art, have yet to see a dime in close to 10 years. The other deal w/ a company called Hypnotic /Wellspring media which was an online division of Universal and turned out very nicely as they sold the film consistently to overseas outlets. Then they sold their library to Shorts International which has been a complete fiasco. I did get a small advance when they re-upped my deal a year and half ago, but I'm still waiting to go on itunes after 18 months and have yet to get a sales report! Not an unusual story.

This leads us back to importance and power of DIY distribution, which just a decade ago felt like a desperation move that signaled your film just wasn't good enough to be picked up by the big boys! Now, it's become almost a necessity. And my main beef w/ the whole DIY is it invariably involves a whole lot of gimmickry that starts to subsume the film itself. Many times it involves the idea of interactivity and approaching the medium as a video game of sorts. Bring the audience in to enhance their experience. If you don't like the scene where Tommy D (Joe Pesci) in GoodFellas get whacked, change it! How 'bout when Charles Foster Kane won't back down to Boss Jim Gettys, just click another option see how it changes the film. I think you get the drift. The fact is all this stuff starts to take us away from the main objective of the Indie filmmaker: to make quality films that you can't just go see at your local multiplex. Of course, we have to find new and innovative ways to connect w/ our audience, but first we have to create something worth seeing!

Having said all this I intend on adding some new scenes to my doc Warriors of the Discotheque: The Starck Club Documentary. First I'm going to put the scenes on http://www.youtube.com/user/jfa42 and let my audience vote for which ones they want. Gotta get w/ the times. Of course I still plan to put in the scenes I think are best.