A big thank-you to everyone who attended the 18th festival!
This year Angel and I met a lot of new friends and had a great time at the festival and at parties, and especially at Maxine's, a short distance from the Malco.
I would also like to personally thank:
-My wife, Angel, has put up with a lot over the last couple of years as I have volunteered my time for the Board and for the festival. Thanks, Angel, for supporting me.
-Our dedicated screening committee. Each committee member watches 150 or more films in the months leading up to the festival, and works very hard to contribute to the list of films recommended by the committee. It is quite a challenge just to watch that many films! Thank you for your huge contribution of time and love.
-We have a fantastic group of volunteers who are very loyal and help the festival run smoothly. Thank you, you all are terrific!
-Thanks to our equipment sponsors, Crescent Communications in Little Rock, who donated the use of switchers, Sony Broadcast, who donated the use of a tape deck, and Visionary Forces of Burbank, CA, who gave us a great deal on tape decks.
-Thanks to The Field Shop in Little Rock, who did a great job of quickly repairing a projector that went down during the festival.
-A special thank you to Demp and Paula Dempsey, and Joseph Dempsey, who have allowed me to spend many hours working on the festival "on the clock" and who have donated the use of equipment and vehicles for the festival.
- Thanks to Jared Kudabeck and his girlfriend Betsy, who helped break down and load out projection equipment, dodging the "sk8ers", on the last night of the festival when everyone else had bailed out to go party. He was also patient with me as I changed my mind 10 times about the layout of the Twitter feed pages, and kept pushing for web site improvements even as the festival progressed.
-Thanks to Tim McCoy for fabulous art, technical support for the Twitter stations, and for just being an awesome guy.
-Thanks to Jim Miller for making himself absolutely indispensable and reacting with grace to a million different demands.
-Thanks to Dan Anderson, who programmed a great festival and kept his head throughout the whole process.
-Last but not least, thanks to Malinda Herr-Chambliss, who hung in there in a difficult economic environment and supported all my crazy ideas.
And thanks to everyone I forgot. I will amend this list as I remember you!
Your support is critical to the survival of the festival and the institute. If you'd like to make a donation, please go to the site at www.hsdfi.org and click the "Donate" button. ANY amount will be helpful to continue the mission of the institute and insure a top-quality festival in years to come.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Q&A sessions are now being posted to YouTube
Starting today, most if not all question and answer sessions are being filmed and posted to YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/TheHSDFIchannel.
They will also be available for viewing from our site, at the film's page. Don't forget to comment and rate the films at the site!
They will also be available for viewing from our site, at the film's page. Don't forget to comment and rate the films at the site!
Fun at the Festival
We had a great time hanging out with filmmakers last night at Porterhouse and Maxine's, late into the night. Director Johanna Lee of "The Pit" was suffering a little today (well let's face it so was I) but participated in a terrific Q&A about the film today after her screening. Keep an eye out for filmmakers and don't forget that the Filmmaker's Celebration on Saturday night is a great chance to meet and talk with the filmmakers. Tickets are still available on the website.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
An Incredibly Rich Schedule
As I look over tomorrow's schedule, I am amazed at the quality of films on a Wednesday. The screening committee and Dan Anderson have done an incredible job this year. It seems to me that there is more of an emphasis of breadth of work this year, considering that most people can follow up and rent on Netflix or another service the docs they miss.
I hope that you will make your own list of films you were interested in that you missed. We all have to work for a living, and this is a super-busy time of year. Once you watch them, comment on the site. Join the conversation.
Also, I'll let you in on a little secret. The Institute is considering having some weekend screenings of some incredible films that didn't make it in this year. There were so many fantastic entries this year that did not make it in because of the limited slots for films, even considering a record 139 films.
Check back to the site or this blog for more information. You can subscribe to this blog and make sure you don't miss anything.
Thanks for your support of the festival!
I hope that you will make your own list of films you were interested in that you missed. We all have to work for a living, and this is a super-busy time of year. Once you watch them, comment on the site. Join the conversation.
Also, I'll let you in on a little secret. The Institute is considering having some weekend screenings of some incredible films that didn't make it in this year. There were so many fantastic entries this year that did not make it in because of the limited slots for films, even considering a record 139 films.
Check back to the site or this blog for more information. You can subscribe to this blog and make sure you don't miss anything.
Thanks for your support of the festival!
Projector Problem resolved
Some of you may have noticed a slightly dimmer or lower-quality picture over the last couple of days in one or the other theater. This is due to a failure of one of our primary DLP projectors which was replaced with an older backup projector. We have now secured a rental unit to replace it and it should be online by end of day Tuesday. Thanks for your patience!
Monday, October 19, 2009
Why come to the festival when there's Netflix?
I love Netflix. We have a Roku box and we stream movies as our main entertainment, and what's not available there, we rent as DVDs. So you might wonder why I love the festival so much.
Here are some reasons:
1) The energy of the audience is something I don't particularly like when I see a narrative film in the theater, but with documentaries, it's different. You are there with a group of people experiencing something together that's really special. And when the film is over, you hear a lot of discussion, whether or not the director and/or the subjects of the film are present. There's a palpable sense of community, of people who are passionate about documentaries.
2) You can hear a commentary from the director on a DVD, but you can't ask questions. The festival is the ultimate interactive experience.
3) I love the old Malco theater and Hot Springs. I love to stay at the Arlington or the Park or the Spring, soak up the ambience of the place. Have some drinks and maybe catch a band at Maxine's, dinner at Rolando's, maybe run into some filmmakers and buy them a drink and talk about the films of the day.
So Netflix is great to watch the movie again. Or watch it before if the film is already out, and make a list of questions for the director. But it doesn't replace the experience of the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival. Not by a long shot.
Here are some reasons:
1) The energy of the audience is something I don't particularly like when I see a narrative film in the theater, but with documentaries, it's different. You are there with a group of people experiencing something together that's really special. And when the film is over, you hear a lot of discussion, whether or not the director and/or the subjects of the film are present. There's a palpable sense of community, of people who are passionate about documentaries.
2) You can hear a commentary from the director on a DVD, but you can't ask questions. The festival is the ultimate interactive experience.
3) I love the old Malco theater and Hot Springs. I love to stay at the Arlington or the Park or the Spring, soak up the ambience of the place. Have some drinks and maybe catch a band at Maxine's, dinner at Rolando's, maybe run into some filmmakers and buy them a drink and talk about the films of the day.
So Netflix is great to watch the movie again. Or watch it before if the film is already out, and make a list of questions for the director. But it doesn't replace the experience of the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival. Not by a long shot.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
On Documentaries
We had some technical difficulties today, a projector went down and had to be replaced temporarily with an older one until we can get a replacement tomorrow. In the midst of all this I sat down in theater 1 and caught the end of Warrior Champions... and forgot all my troubles.
I was reminded that while we strive for better and better quality projection, you could project a great documentary from a crappy old VHS tape onto a cardboard box and still sit there with tears running down your face watching it.
At the very first festival I remember showing up at a screening amid some kind of flurry of activity and discussion up in the projection area. The film was a 16mm print, a French film about the men who climb rickety bamboo lashed together, hundreds of feet in the air into enormous caves opening to the ocean in China, to gather birds' nests for soup.
The problem? A 25fps print, the european standard, threaded onto a 24fps projector, the US standard. It will load and run just fine, but the frames don't line up and it looks all streaky because the film is pulled down into the gate at the wrong time. In the US, even then, a 25fps 16mm projector was extremely rare. So the decision was made to just go ahead and screen it anyway.
Even with the viewing challenges, the film was absolutely stunning, and I was hooked on documentaries. I left with a strange feeling, as if my life had gotten brighter, fuller.
Today, all these years later, as I watched and listened to the Renaud brothers taking questions after the screening of Warrior Champions, I wondered who might be there in the Malco for their first time, transfixed by this wonderful experience and feeling their heart expand in their chest and their head reeling with thoughts and emotions. Brighter. Fuller.
Welcome. You are one of us now. See you at the festival.
I was reminded that while we strive for better and better quality projection, you could project a great documentary from a crappy old VHS tape onto a cardboard box and still sit there with tears running down your face watching it.
At the very first festival I remember showing up at a screening amid some kind of flurry of activity and discussion up in the projection area. The film was a 16mm print, a French film about the men who climb rickety bamboo lashed together, hundreds of feet in the air into enormous caves opening to the ocean in China, to gather birds' nests for soup.
The problem? A 25fps print, the european standard, threaded onto a 24fps projector, the US standard. It will load and run just fine, but the frames don't line up and it looks all streaky because the film is pulled down into the gate at the wrong time. In the US, even then, a 25fps 16mm projector was extremely rare. So the decision was made to just go ahead and screen it anyway.
Even with the viewing challenges, the film was absolutely stunning, and I was hooked on documentaries. I left with a strange feeling, as if my life had gotten brighter, fuller.
Today, all these years later, as I watched and listened to the Renaud brothers taking questions after the screening of Warrior Champions, I wondered who might be there in the Malco for their first time, transfixed by this wonderful experience and feeling their heart expand in their chest and their head reeling with thoughts and emotions. Brighter. Fuller.
Welcome. You are one of us now. See you at the festival.
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