Please Update Blogroll For [This Savage Art...]

I have a new address for [this savage art...]

The new site can be found here:

http://www.thissavageart.com/

Simple right? Please make note to bookmark and add address change if I'm on your blogroll. There is also an RSS feed available to subscribe to. I will no longer be posting here in the future.

Thanks.

The Management.

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Moving

I'm moving. No, not out of New York. Out of the Blogger neighborhood and into the WordPress one. I've been doing a lot of things behind the scenes and I think I'm ready to give you 20 or so visitors a heads up. I will be tweaking until the end of time but the domain is secured and parked so if you feel compelled you should bookmark. I'm probably going to transfer all posts to the new blog but if I don't I guess this will stay right where it is unless I decide to just off it. I'm not one for looking back.

With that spirit you will notice a stripped down look. I'm cutting the fat. Something you should know about the new site, it will be an overall filmmaking site. Not specific to any one aspect of the process, this version has been very screenplay oriented so I hope to make it a fuller experience for the person interested in writing and directing their own films, taking advantage of the technological advancements that happen while at the same time never forgetting about craft. I will try not to just regurgitate what I've seen around the net but try to give perspective. And of course I will give you the play by play on any advancements in my miserable little career.

One thing this weblog has done is make me understand what I'm trying to create or maybe even better, not trying to create. I'll elaborate later with a full entry on the new site. Check it out and tell me what you think of the design, text size and color, functionality and all that. So without further ado....v2.0

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Full Week

I haven't been posting too much this week due to a full schedule. Today I mailed out my screenplay to the Nicholl people. This being the first year they put up an online application proved to be a challenge. After numerous tries I finally got myself in the system. It's all okay because there is something so satisfying about binding up your script. Physically putting it together with a cover and brads. Feeling the paper in your hands. I mean sure you could stack up a pile of 108 blank pages but it doesn't have the same "weight".

This week is also the beginning of the Tribeca Film Festival. I've been living downtown for a couple of years now and I have to admit it is pretty nice walking out your door and there is a major film event going on in your neighborhood. Last night I went to the screening of Civic Duty and just got back now from seeing Kettle of Fish. I'll try to do one big recap of the festival at the end. Maybe I'll actually be able to enjoy some of it now that the weekend is coming up. I have to say it's an interesting week when you are in the same proximity of Norman Mailer, Peter Krause and Gina Gershon, oh yeah, how can I forget seeing Mandy "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father, prepare to die" Patinkin sitting outside of Odeon after getting a haircut.

On the work front, I got a call from a production company looking to get some new blood into there place. So I have make a new editor reel for 2006 which is probably good anyway. I had to do it this just gave me a reason to. I've acually been juggling it all. I even found the time to start building a new site for this savage art.... I'll be switching over to WordPress in the next week or two. Right now I'm building and tweaking. I think it's coming along nicely. I'll post the new address here when it's fully up and running.

What's next? A new screenplay. After I cut the new reel I'll start to work on breaking a new story. Figuring out what you want to spend the next six months and beyond writing about is a challenge. You have to give yourself enough time to get the story and the beats in your head and live with it for a while otherwise you are setting yourself up for a nightmare later on.

Ever feel like you have homework for the rest of your life?

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Wes Anderson, It's His Life, His Card

Who thought using American Express would be this cool?

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Dyre Avenue Complete

You almost killed me. You drove me to drink but I got you. You are done!

I just completed my screenplay. I feel spent and I should because I put a lot into it. Flesh and blood. Just numb right now like I've been sleeping on my arm all day. It gets a spelling/grammar polish tomorrow then off to the printer to be sent out to Nicholl.

Yes, I am already thinking about the next one.

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Still Here

Just busy. Hammering the script out for the May 1 deadline and playing with a new website for all my junk. I consolidated, moved things around and got a new host, Dreamhost. So far pretty happy with it. I'll be blogging with WordPress. It's great. Real clean look. Dig it. I "might" attempt to transfer all the Blogger posts over to the new WordPress blog. There is a tool that allows you to do just that but who knows if it makes a clean transfer. If anyone has had experience doing this please let me know how smooth it went or didn't. Like I said, I "might".

Here is a little preview [update:replaced with the newest, latest] of the main index page I designed. Nothing is linked, just a background for now. It will be the launching pad for the blog and other works. Thoughts?

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The Circus Is Coming To Town

I got my tickets. This morning The Tribeca Film Festival allowed poor slobs like me to buy individual tickets instead of the all access Hudson pass which goes for $1,000. I tried to mix them up and get an ecclectic choice of films like I've done in the past. The box office got slammed, took me over an hour to order online. These are my picks (descriptions are from the site):

Civic Duty - A seemingly well-adjusted American accountant loses his job and becomes obsessed with terrorist plots and cable news propaganda. When an Islamic student moves in next door, the accountant's suspicions lead to shocking conclusions in this post-September 11 thriller starring Six Feet Under's Peter Krause.

Kettle of Fish - The human species is a strange one, especially when it comes to mating rituals. It seems so much simpler and more organic with goldfish or frogs. Writer/director Claudia Myers' winsome romantic comedy Kettle of Fish features a lifelong bachelor, Mel (Matthew Modine), and a British biologist, Ginger (Gina Gershon), that might just learn a few things from our aquatic friends.

American Cannibal: The Road To Reality - In this unflinching, behind-the-scenes look at a doomed reality show, a pair of novice TV writers team up with the distributor of the Paris Hilton sex tapes to create a reality show in which contestants are starved on a desert island. More than just gripping entertainment, this documentary poses important questions about how far people will go in pursuit of fame and fortune

First Snow - When destiny bullies us, do we fight back? Fergus never stoops to psychological-thriller film cliché in his chilling debut feature, in which salesman Jimmy Starks (Guy Pearce) is gripped by panic after a psychic warns him of his impending death.

Colour Me Kubrick - John Malkovich gives a hilarious tour-de-force as Alan Conway, a conman who successfully passed himself off as the famed and notoriously reclusive director for the last decade or so of the filmmaker's life.

Animated New York - Welcome to the wonderfully warped world of New York City independent animation. To the surprise of many, New York is the center of one of the largest and most acclaimed groups of independent animators in the world. While L.A. is the center of corporate animation, New York has spawned a colony of maverick animators that create films that they want to make and thrive in the exploding indie film culture despite eschewing public funding.

The Treatment - Jake Singer is a frustrated, confused, and recently dumped New York schoolteacher who enters into therapy in an attempt to find guidance in his life. The treatment appears to be working, but when he suddenly falls in love with a beautiful widow, Jake is forced to battle his therapist's alarmingly strong influence. Starring Chris Eigeman, Ian Holm, and Famke Janssen.

West Side Highway - This year our NY, NY shorts program travels from downtown to uptown, with a couple of emotional stops in between.

Brothers of the Head - London, 1975. Conjoined twins with a creepy, crypto-erotic bond take the burgeoning glam/punk scene by storm in this wrenching adaptation of Brian Aldiss' novel. Luke and Harry Treadway deliver searing performances as two very different parts of one fatally compromised whole, and the film and its music will stick with you for days.

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Open Invitation For You

April is the month when all the cool stuff happens. The funk of winter ends. The Tribeca Film Festival starts which is like the circus coming to town for me. NAB unleashes all the new gear that I can't afford but drool over.

So what are you doing from April 25th to May 7th? If you read this savage art..., consider yourself a writer/director/producer or any other hyphenate (or not) involved with the film world and will be in NYC during the Tribeca Film Festival let's schmooze. Send me an e-mail with "TFF" as the subject and if there are enough participants I'll set a date, pick a place and we can all burn our business cards, talk shop and drink some liquor.

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Craig Mazin Does HD

I'm cross-pollinating here. Check out The Artful Writer for screenwriter Craig Mazin's take on the new Panavision Genesis HD System that was used on Scary Movie 4.

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I Am Jack's Unfinished Screenplay

The Constipated Writer has some words of wisdom via Tyler Durden.

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Keane, Cut And Re-Cut

I recently signed up for Netflix and the Lodge Kerrigan film Keane was my first choice. It's a film about a young man who wanders through New York's Port Authority bus terminal searching for his daughter who may have been abducted the year before. We're not even sure if he had a daughter because as the film advances we find out that he suffers from schizophrenia. The film has garnered much attention at a number of film festivals and is now available for home viewing. Steven Soderbergh, aka the busiest working film director in the world, is credited as producer on this film but he doesn't stop there. He offeres up an edited version of his own. So what you have is two uniquely different films available on the DVD release. To see the real power of the edit at work check out Keane, both versions. Damian Lewis is raw and intense as the lead character William Keane.

More on Keane and Kerrigan can be seen on Cinematical and IndieWIRE

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Nicholl Fellowship Application Available

There are downloadable PDF and Word applications available now on the website. An online application is also in the works and is encouraged. According to site you will, for the first time,

...have the ability to fill-in and submit your application form via your computer, pay by credit card, track your entry so that you'll know it has been received and entered into the competition and update your contact information online at any time during the competition.

Note: you will still need to submit a hardcopy of the screenplay even if you apply electronically.

Now would be the time to get that screenplay in shape if you're thinking of entering. Postmarked deadline is May 1st.

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"The Pin's On It Now..."

Brick opens today in Los Angeles and New York. Go.

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Sorry Man, It's A New York Thing

Nor should they be viewed outside of New York City, Brooklyn or the Bronx. Watching Abel Ferrara west of Staten Island should be punishable by law.

--Flickhead speaking of Abel Ferrara films in reference to the recent Abel Ferrara Blog-a-Thon coordinated by Girish Shambu.

photo by Rose Serra

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