I just completed the trailer for my Beijing Olympics film, Boomtown Beijing,just in time for the upcoming Singapore International Film Festival and the charity screening in Beijing on April 20th.
A big thank you to my friend, Zhou Hou Heng (周侯衡） , for helping me edit and package the trailer.
Watch the trailer here:
For many years, I have attended the Singapore International Film Festival as a movie-goer. This year, for the first time, I will be attending the festival as a filmmaker.
My documentary about the Beijing Olympics, Boomtown Beijing, will be screening at in the Singapore Panorama section on Wed April 9th at 9:15pm and Sat April 12th at 2pm. Tickets can be purchased here.
Boomtown Beijing is only one of more than a dozen films in the Singapore Panorama showcase this year, which includes a broad range of works made by Singapore filmmakers..
Please support SIFF, one of the oldest film festivals in Asia and arguably, also one of the most rigorously curated.
A few years ago, I had the pleasure of directing the biography of Taiwanese sculptor Ju Ming.
He is best known for his quirky Living World Series and the monumental Tai Chi Series.
In the process of filming the documentary, I fell in love with the wonderful space that is the Ju Ming museum, an open air sculpture park dedicated to the exhibition of Ju’s works.
Hence, I am a little ticked but nonetheless very delighted to see that the museum has launched a new product.
I call it Taichi series 2.0 — cookies cast in the shape of the famous sculptures.
It is thus with great satisfaction that I can finally lay claim to having an entry on “Chinese food” on my blog, right along my musings about ‘Chinese documentary film’, ‘China’s urban life’, ‘Chinese internet.’
A mockumentary about the “History of Evil”– what a wicked idea! I can hardly believe this is a student project.
Link via Boing Boing
Does the rise of “Freeconomics” freak you out?
Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business
Technorati Tags: Chris Anderson, Wired Magazine, business model, future of media, new media
The online demand for short films has been growing and growing.
While indie features continue to struggle to find distribution, short film makers have a better chance of making some cash by putting their films on sale via iTunes, Xbox, and Netflix.
A recent entry at the Circuit Blog at Variety.com notes the irony of the situation — short filmmakers at Sundance 2008 may do better financially than their feature film counterparts.
The Circuit - Blog on Variety.com - 1390000339
The key reason for this: bandwidth. Greater bandwidth and faster internet access has turned the Web into a viable distribution system for short films.
Films in the “under 10 minute” category also play well to the internet audience, notorious for having the attention span of a flea.
In response, a slew of online film festivals have sprung up, trying to capitalize on the opportunity of Internet distribution:
- Babelgum Online Film Festival — This short film festival, championed by Spike Lee, has received considerable media attention.
Selected works will also be aired on a internet TV channel called the Babelgum Channel
- Pangea Day Festival
Do you have a short film that stands for social change? Pangea Day Festival is the place for you.
It is backed by Participant Productions, the same people behind the films, An Inconvenient Truth and
Syriana
Closer to home, specialized short film distributors such as, Objectifs Films, have carved a niche by bringing Asian short films to a global audience.
In the age of viral video and online short film festivals, film makers have to be ever more succinct.
If you have a film that will change the world, make sure it is under 5 minutes.
Technorati Tags: movie marketing, online distribution, video distribution, Sundance Film Festival, online film festival, Babelgum Online Film Festival, Pangea day Festival, Participant Productions
I don’t know about you but I cannot recall the last time I have used a semicolon in my writing.
If and when I did use that venerable but often abused punctuation mark, I am convinced I must have employed it inappropriately.
I am grateful therefore for this timely article in the New York Times.
Celebrating the Semicolon in a Most Unlikely Location - New York Times
In the age of short text messages and punchy micro-blog entries, the semicolon seems to be in danger of extinction.
The diminishing use of that punctuation mark,which, links yet separates closely related ideas may well signify larger changes in our culture. Addicted to speed, we constantly accelerate and have little patience to pause to contemplate. We eschew the complexity of multi-part arguments in favor of the instant gratification of simplistic sound bytes.
Kudos once again to the NYT. Few other papers can do what it has done with this essay:make its reader reflect upon the social and cultural milieu in which proper language use finds its true significance.
I especially love this quote by Kurt Vonnegut in the article: “When Hemingway killed himself he put a period at the end of his life. Old age is more like a semicolon.”
The best films often don’t win the biggest awards.
This is the conclusion that I have come to after observing film competitions and award ceremonies on the sidelines.
I have seen very average films make it to the top film festivals in the world. On the other hand, highly nuanced and well produced pieces have been left out on the cold, hard pavement of rejection.
The key to this puzzle lies in that intangible and elusive variable we sometimes call “resonance”
Oscar-nominated documentaries send message of hope - Yahoo! News
News about this year’s Oscar nominations seem to confirm this educated guess. 4 out of 15 films that made it to the shortlist for documentary features deal with the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of these, 3 out of the 4 war films, No End in Sight, Taxi to the Dark Side,Operation Homecoming, scored Oscar nominations.
We all know that the war in Iraq and Afghanistan are millstones tied to the neck of the American conscience. So documentary film making,too,becomes a means of exorcising the ghosts of blood, violence and the tears of innocent victims. The war theme resonates with the American zeitgeist.
In other words, if you are making a personal film about a little known cause in an obscure place with a polysyllabic name that defies pronunciation, your chances of clinching an Oscar nomination and winning a big award are close to zero. No matter how well-made your film may be.
This is because your film will not find resonance with your intended audience. The jury panel and the film festival goers may be frustrated because they search, could not find, those reflections of their greatest sorrows and deepest anxieties in your work of art.
In that sense, the ability to read the times and have your finger on the pulse of your audience is just as important as the technical skills involved in crafting a good film.
Having said that, it is perhaps wise to go ahead and make that obscure little film anyway.
The making of the film that is after your heart is reward in itself, even without the coveted laurels of nominations and awards.
Technorati Tags: Oscar nominations, Oscar-nominated documentaries, documentary film making, movie marketing, film festivals
One strange thing about attending one of the top film festivals in the world: I hardly saw any films.
Over the course of 1 week, I saw a grand total of 3 films. I quickly learned that I was not alone in being an anti-film buff at the Berlinale.
The modern film festival is no longer simply an event for movie lovers. The Berlinale film screenings are but one component of a whole array of parallel events, including the European Film Market, the Berlinale Talent Campus and Berlinale Co-production Market. Each event is a mini ecosystem in itself with its entourage of attendees, patrons and micro-celebrities.
Lost in the labyrinth of events, parties and dinners, I saw many great movie posters at the Berlinale but very few films.
One of the films I missed is the Italian movie, Caos Calmo, directed by Antonello Grimaldi. I saw the Caos Calmo poster everywhere I went but did not catch the film.
Ironically, I came home to Singapore and discovered on the Internet how Caos Calmo has found resonance with the Italian zeitgeist with its quiet desperation and existential angst.
What on earth would we do without the World Wide Web?
Technorati Tags: Berlin Film Festival, film making, movie marketing, Caos Calmo, Antonello Grimaldi, movie posters, European Film Market, Berlinale Talent Campus
I have always been suspicious of self-help literature. Think about it, if all these self-help books really worked, would our bookstores still be inundated by fresh titles offering stale advice?
Nonetheless, I found this talk about the 8 secrets of Success by marketer and success analyst,Richard St. John , clever, succinct and entertaining.
TED | Talks | Richard St. John: Secrets of success in 8 words, 3 minutes (video)
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