Discover Top Posts Tagged with #lillieharrison

Sundance Panels

The brand of Sundance would be what I describe as innovation within independent film as well as providing lovers of the cinema with the tools and accessibility to become an active participant in their production. The panels channel these beautifully. I think their close sponsorship with Adobe speaks to this tremendously. Adobe provided all ignite pass holders with a free year subscription to creative cloud, a generous offer that provides an upwards of 600 people with the tools to begin creating. Further more, the panel focused heavily on filmmakers in competition explaining in real terms what it took to create their film, how they drew inspiration, and what it takes to be relatively successful in their field. I think the film maker speed dating panel spoke to this the most, although the woman at the breakfast panel who produced, directed, and edited her own documentary is the definition of innovation and persistence. In the speed dating panel, the ignite holders were the mediators, and we had ample time to ask experienced professionals exactly what it took to get their films made. I learned that a good documentary takes a village of people behind you and year and years of persistence and education; I learned that sometimes you have to take the reins at the split of the hair and be able to adjust to last second mistakes; and I learned that your roots will provide you with ample personal inspiration that will subconsciously allow you to produce authentic pieces. Attending the panels enlightened me to the uphill battle that this industry will be for me to navigate, but then again, I also feel like its what i was built to do. That speaks to the encouragement and support system Sundance strives to build.

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Us Kids: HIT

Last Friday my friends and I all had a break between our scheduled ignite event and our later screenings, during which we were going to explore main street and grab some lunch. Instead, on a whim, we waitlisted Us Kids, a documentary we knew only as addressing gun control activism. We all got in and were astounded and the emotional pull the film had, covering the aftermath of the Parkland shooting in Florida and the snowball effect it had thanks to spearheads of the young movement such as Emma Gonzalez. It even shed some light on David Hogg, a 17 year old who had been ridiculed in the media, and someone I didn’t find very charismatic based on his coverage. Here’s the thing, he survived trauma. He is fighting for something he believes is. Media is manipulative. The whole documentary did a beautiful job of reminding viewers that these are not politicians, they were children. They were strong intelligent and driven children. Although I wish there was more space allotted in the film to elaborate on their proposal for what had to change within our gun reform, the film did a beautiful job of bringing the gun toting 2nd amendment extremists back down to Earth, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the theater. The Q&A panel as well as getting to meet the director was also an enormous pleasure.

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The Industry of Sundance: Indie Film Bingo

Sundance has a rather prestigious reputation for the films they accept into screening and competition, and while watching my screenings I became more privy to common traits that are preferred out of the selected works.

For starters, cinematography is key. Even in the cheesiest screenings I found myself watching, the visuals were consistently beautiful and well thought out. Though some took a more art house approach, most stuck with a mood and saturation for the entirety of the screen time and used this to shape the tone and world in which actions took place.

Another thing I noticed was the authenticity and charisma of the protagonists. A lot of the narrative managed to sneak in a subtle caricature of an antagonist whose purpose was to be blatantly obnoxious for five minutes and step back to allow the main character to shine. Maybe this is because most indie film darlings are less main stream and see this as an opportunity to give a performance of a lifetime. Something about actors seem so much more real and accessible consistently, almost as if they’re truly just playing themselves.

Finally, in nearly every screening i saw, the ending was open ended and ambiguous. Sundance seems to really enjoy when the films extend a bit past a natural conclusion and end on a note that make the audience go, “ Wait…what?”There’s this affinity for anything that suggests theres a deeper meaning that is just out of reach, one we have to decipher for ourselves. And lets be honest, we’re all film buffs, we eat that up too.

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The Matrix

Sundance is technology friendly, to say the least. Within every event I attended a part of my ignite package, the coordinators made great us of the projectors and PA system to maintain orders at the panels. This allowed the audience to also see clips that provided context and visual aid to the speakers and filmmaker’s credentials and back round. Of course the screenings themselves require technology as we are a visual medium, but even the waitlists and ticket systems are electronic. People across the world can buy seats to exclusive screening without their location becoming a time or distance restraint. Not to mention, the festival is diving head first into more futuristic technologies. For example, there were multiple virtual reality stations set up across the scope of the festival, one involving VR goggles with water to simulate being in space. Instead of in-person trivia night you could play trivia for a chance to win a package bundle through the app and be emailed your status. Nothing is word of mouth because every update is sent to your phone, and by extension, in the palm of your hand.

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The Culture of Sundance: Disregarding the Hierarchy

When gearing up to go to Sundance, I thought what many film lovers with less experience may have thought: this might get pretentious. I was fully expecting the “Sundance darlings” to be fawned over and industry executives to be unapproachable. I made the mistake of approaching the film festival as a music festival where I was general admission sitting below the VIPs.

In reality, everyone in the film festivals are presented a similar experience. Of course film makers have special treatment for their own screenings, but after the Q and A, theres no security or lines. You just walk up to them if you’d like and most everyone is happy to speak with you. I met several legitimate producers in line next to me to watch a screening and they all handed out business cards liberally. Regardless of the stage of their careers, everyone would love to see you succeed and no one is too big of a fish to have a conversation with. The actors in the films I came across spoke to me as if I was an old friend.

In truth, attempting to find stable income in a field of independent cinema is ballsy, and everyone there knows it. We are all currently working towards that or have lived the struggle already. The Sundance film festival provides an even playing field for all in attendance, and focuses on giving aspiring filmmakers the tools needed for success. Everyone is just human there.

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The Business of Sundance: Buzzkills

One film i was particularly excited to see was “The Night House”. The film advertised itself in the festival as a psychological horror/thriller, which is what I would like to be involved in within my future endeavors. The description alludes to haunting during a woman’s dreams after the death of her husband, and though it does deliver in this aspect, the whole film was a bit gimmicky.

The only parts that had any particular tension were during the night scenes and dream sequences, but even then this derived from the sense of a predictable jump scare that the film tended to rely on. The psychological aspects of the film were murky when I feel they should have been the source of any uneasiness the viewers felt during the watch.

(Spoilers) After digging through her husband’s occult-like documents and floor plans for another house he had been building, she discovers bodies of his victims and the film revealed him to be a serial killer. Cliche. The film resolves this cliche with an even better one: her husband has been fighting the influence of a demon who was mad that our protagonist claims she saw nothing with her heart stopped in high school. On top of this, the filmmakers used their shoe horned witch craft scenes to build up to a tragic gruesome death for our protagonist, and chickened out. If the goal was to compare her demonic haunting to personal demons that came with the grief following her husbands suicide, the idea that she peaked in her delusions and simple snapped out of it is ridiculous. And why throw in the serial killer aspect? Who is the psychological theme centered on? The film tried to pull every aspect of horror into a 90 minute runtime and came out with a mess of ideas that were poorly developed and unsatisfying.

Side note- the “demon” had about three vocal layers applied in an attempt to sound spooky, but instead all the audience heard was gibberish that sounded like a sound cloud rapper went crazy in garage band for the firs time.

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