Fire-Wired Blog

, Recently I've fallen down a rabbit hole of modern independent film. Indulging heavily in the works of Jeff Nichols, Lynne Shelton, Mark and Jay Duplass, David Gordon Green, Joe Swanberg and many others. Normally this wouldn't be something worth posting about, but somewhere along that path I came across a smattering of interviews with Joe Swanberg talking about his film Drinking Buddies . Joe is quite prolific and he ascribes much of his work to the community he travels in of filmmakers, writers, and actors. I love the idea of a "community," people who live and breathe filmmaking and creating. Time and again I've espoused my love for the traveling film competition, the 48 Hour Film Project. Filmmakers and fanatics banding together for a whirlwind weekend creating a short. As great as it is, the Des Moines 48 Hour Film Project is two days, two out 365. For many that's plenty, but for the rest of us it's not nearly enough. Considering Joe Swanberg ...

This article was first published by dmcityview.com In film fanatic circles, much is made of the “Golden Age” of cinema, i.e. the 1930s and 1970s. Films from these periods, such as “Gone With the Wind” and “The Godfather,” respectively, are considered the pinnacle of celluloid expression, and the entire movie industry seemed to be enraptured with artistic meaning and bravura storytelling. As wonderfully nostalgic as that sounds, being a cinephile myself, I personally find no era of film more exciting than the one we are living in right now. Why? Technology has leveled the playing field. For roughly $1,000, the most rudimentary pieces of filmmaking can be had with non-linear video editing and prosumer cinematic cameras. Around the turn of the century, applications such as Media 100, Apple’s Final Cut Pro and Adobe’s Premiere Pro started to proliferate across the independent filmmaking community. These programs allowed amateurs to digitize their footage and manipulate it by dragging a...