November 2010
9 posts
Orgasm, Inc. →
“Shocking and hilarious” is an apt description for Liz Canner’s 2009 documentary that so far has not been seen on television. The Vermont filmmaker came to Columbia University to screen Orgasm, Inc. for Barnard/Columbia students who are active in Sexual Consent education and then screened her documentary at Columbia Journalism School for journalism students, some of whom are...
Leonard Lopate’s fascinating conversation...
Access v. Journalism in "Inside Job" -- a... →
WatchPUPPET is a film that expands your mind. Puppets are not just for kids. Other cultures know this and have rich traditions of shadow, string, hand and three-person manipulated puppets. Puppets can express emotion better than live actors because they exist alternately only as inert carved blocks of wood or other material. Most reviewers of puppetry hate the assignment and would prefer watching...
Celebrity Doc Makers
Errol Morris’s new documentary Tabloid is notable for its simplicity.
He recounts the story of Joyce McKinney whose life twice intersected with tabloid sensationalism. 32 years intervened between the “sex-in-chains” and “dog cloned” stories that brought her notoriety of a sort. Now, Morris opens the pages of McKinney’s life and scrapbook again, but for what...
Find the Equivalent
A filmmaker should not ask someone to “do it again,” but rather think hard about what he missed or didn’t get and find a shot, scene, or emotion that is equivalent.
A CBS News cameraman once said to me, when I bemoaned his missing what I thought was a crucial shot, “If I had a dollar for every “essential” shot that I’d missed, I would be a rich man.” Since he was one of the best cinematographers...
Comprehensive Education, not Comprehensive...
Making a comprehensive documentary about education is impossible and is certainly more elusive than writing the Great American Novel. What Waiting for Superman and similar films do is put education reform on the American agenda because social action funders have decided that is a worthy goal. Good, focused reporting might produce documentaries that show what is possible as well as the odds...
