Sundance Institute Film Series

Free. Every Month.

Sundance Institute invites you to step inside the world of independent filmmaking each month with the new Sundance Institute Film Series. Part screening, part discussion, we'll showcase work supported by Sundance Institute and give you
an opportunity to meet the filmmakers and discuss the films.

Film Music Showcase
An evening with Peter Golub

Wed | May 6, 2009 | 7:00 p.m.
Park City Library
1255 Park Avenue
Park City

Some films have music so integral to their story that you cannot imagine certain scenes without hearing those memorable hooks. Join Peter Golub, film composer and director of Sundance Institute's Film Music Program, as he gives an insider's look at the challenges of composing music for film, and shares excerpts from films he has composed -- including Denzel Washington's The Great Debaters and Courtney Hunt's Frozen River, winner of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival
Grand Jury Prize.

This Weekend

Park City Film Series is screening 2008's Academy Award nominated film, The Wrestler, tonight and tomorrow (Sat. the 25th) at 7:00 pm and Sunday at 6:00 pm.
Park City Library
1255 Park Ave.
$7

48 Hour Film Project

Last weekend, Las Vegas not only hosted the annual National Association of Broadcasters convention, it also was this year's kick off point for the ninth annual 48 Hour Film Project.

From the website:
"The 48 Hour Film Project is a wild and sleepless weekend in which you and a team make a movie—write, shoot, edit and score it—in just 48 hours.

On Friday night, you get a character, a prop, a line of dialogue and a genre, all to include in your movie. 48 hours later, the movie must be complete. Then it will show at a local theater, usually in the next week.

In 2008, some 30,000 filmmakers made films in 70 cities. This year, we're even bigger, with filmmakers around the world taking the challenge to make a film in just 48 hours."

48 Hour Film Project hits Salt Lake City May 15th to the 17th and screenings of the films will be the following weekend. Teams are forming, get yours together now! Registration is $155 for teams of any size. Finished films are four to seven minutes in length.

Article VI

This is a clip from a Utah-produced documentary that showed at the D.C. Independent Film Festival in March. It has screened in major cities across the entire U.S. and has received overwhelmingly positive responses from audiences. Having viewed the entire 90+ minutes of it myself, I can see why. This is one of the most facinating documentaries I've seen. It focuses on two of the hottest topics around: religion and politics. It handles these issues with finesse and respect.

Article VI of the United State's Constitution states: "The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." And yet, a huge amount of the questions in the debates for the 2008 Presidential Candidacy were extremely personal and dealt directly with candidates' spirituality and religion.

Filmmakers, Bryan Hall and Jack Donaldson (both LDS Democrats), of Living Biography Media created an incredibly captivating and powerful documentary. When I interviewed Hall he talked about how he likes documentaries that show both sides of a story while still revealing their own bias. His film clearly met up with his own criterion. Somerset Films' Dean Hale is working on finding distributors. I eagerly await directing my friends and family (and all of you) on where and when or how they can view the film.

Props to New Zion

Salt Lake City graphic designer, Joshua Humphreys, was recently contacted by a filmmaker to make signs for a video production. Josh then realized he knew a lot of people who would be useful in the physical aspect of making a set. First to mind was Paul, an incredibly talented metal-worker, who can also get his hands on cars from any era. But Josh also knew people in plastics, aviation, sound, and various other craftsmen who could build, customize, or aquire just about anything you can imagine.
Josh decided to fill a niche in the Utah film market and create New Zion Film Properties, a conglomerate of several companies fullfilling the needs of visionary film makers. If you need a prop or scenery, they will quickly find or make it for you. Hopefully this new venture will knock down another barrier keeping film makers out of Utah.

Got Stock Footage?

Orem's Creative Media Group has birthed a new venture, StockShotsNow.com. This is good news for videographers, editors, camera men/women, and producers. They have enabled you to put your stock clips up on their site, which is also searchable by five other companies. If they sell your clip, you receive a 40-50% commission on the sale. This is using footage you've already shot!
You also have the option of becoming one of their Stock Footage Artists, where you are put on an email list where they forward you their clients footage requests. They are currently receiving approximately three to five requests a week. Maybe you have the footage they need right in your archives.
When I spoke with C.M.G.'s John Farr a couple weeks ago about Stock Shots Now, he had just returned from shooting in the Great Britain with one of their coveted Red cameras, which produces video at four times the quality of a Hi Def camera. If he's really lucky instead of selling that footage for the usual one or two hundred dollars per clip, he'll sell it to a major motion picture company for thousands like he did recently with his shots of Paris. He sold a few clips to Sony Pictures which were used in their film, The Pink Panther 2.