Let it Snow

I have been swamped with work and now a foot of snow. The dumb filmmaker apologizes for his absence from this page, but promises to return with all new exciting posts on viral marketing, Flashpoint Academy's production-in-action- film, The Intruder, the Red camera- which The Intruder is using- and much, much more.

I also want to thank all the people who commented on the cheating post, Chris Burritt, and Heath Ledger. I appreciate the loyal readers.

Enjoy the Super Bowl, go Pats!

PeterH

The Internet, Kids Today and Heath Ledger

This past Tuesday the PBS series Frontline broadcast a fascinating look at teenagers who have grown up with the Internet. The program focused on a small New Jersey town about an hour's train ride from Manhattan. It looked at a different families and shared stories about how being on-line 24 hours a day is shaping these kids' lives.

Among the things I learned is the following: Young people don't have the time to read. The go to Sparknotes.com and read that. My favorite quote, "If I had 27 hours in a day I would read the book, but I just don't have the time." As a result teachers teach with the understanding that the students aren't reading the text, just the sparknotes and teach to that. That's sad.

Other items of interest:

The reach of both My Space and Facebook. If a high schooler doesn't have a page on those sites they aren't anyone.

Cyber bulling. One boy was bullied via the internet and developed an on-line relationship with another boy who convinced him to kill himself. There is a website which teaches you how to hang yourself. Another website which helps you figure out the "coolest" way in which to kill yourself by giving you a questionnaire. Sort of the "Cosmo Quiz" for the suicidal. This 13-year old boy hung himself.

A group of high schoolers took a train into Manhattan and spent the night partying- and documenting it with their cell phone cameras. It wasn't long before their pictures of their night out was on the Internet and their parents found out. The kids weren't upset their parents learned about the partying- they were upset that the parents thought it was such a big deal.
(Note to self- make sure all pictures of me at the Kentucky Derby 1985-1987 have been destroyed.)

It was a fascinating program and very unironically you can watch the whole show on-line at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/.

Also on Tuesday the actor Heath Ledger died. I was in class when the news broke, but my computer was on and I received an e-mail and a text message telling me the news. At the end of my class I was talking to a guest speaker who came to another class. I asked him how it went, he said fine, "But when news of Heath Ledger's death came on-line we had to stop and discuss it. I thought they were taking notes with their laptops not surfing the net."

Kids today.

PeterH

The Name of the Game...

... is collaboration.

All artists collaborate in one way or another, you must in order to succeed, and the most successful artists instinctively know how to work with others. More importantly they know their work will be better with the input from other people. Collaboration frees you up to do what you do best.

This brings me to guitarist, musician, artist David Broza who performed at Flashpoint Academy yesterday afternoon. Broza believes his gift is creating music not writing lyrics, so over the course of his 30-year career, he has actively sought out collaborators to write the words set to his music. He works with writers, poets, finds stories from current events he wants to sing about and has someone else write the lyrics for his songs. And I forgot to add he works in three languages- Hebrew, Spanish and English- and he is a self-taught guitar virtuoso.

A student asked him how he goes about finding these people to work with, and the short answer is that he picks up the phone, makes the call and asks. It's easier now for him of course because he is famous, but it is the same method he has used since the 1970s. This is an important lesson to all of you eager artists out there- ask for help, especially if you are passionate about your work- you will find that simpatico person.

In the meantime check out David Broza and add some of his music to your collection.

http://www.davidbroza.net

PeterH

My Cheatin' Heart

"I was thrown out of college for cheating on my metaphysics exam. I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me." Woody Allen

I heard an interesting piece on NPR earlier this week about how many young people take for granted that everything on the internet is free and they should never have to pay for it. However, those of us who create content do like getting compensated and at some point we will no longer tolerate the wholesale theft of our work. A few months ago I posted about how half of my students had DVD quality copies of the film American Gangster a week before the film opened in theaters. This, I think, is a good example of this assumption that if it is out there it is mine for the taking.

If you start from a place where all information is free, then where do you draw the line? Can you look into the soul (and test paper) of the student sitting next to you? Is it all right to knowingly cheat on a test just because that information is out there anyway?

Of course not.

I have two theories on students cheating. The first is what I wrote above- we are living in a society where it is so common to take things from others that getting an answer or two or three seems like nothing- everyone is doing it. My other theory is that students are cheating not for themselves but to please their parents and teachers. They are so insecure that leaving an answer blank or actually admitting they do not know something is much more painful than using someone else's work as their own.

I'll end with another quote from Woody Allen that I feel sums up my opinion of cheaters.
"His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy."

PeterH

Chris Burritt

On Monday my friend and former colleague at Columbia, Chris Burritt, died. Chris was a terrific lighting and camera teacher. His students loved him and I am writing this post because I know a lot of my former students, who were also his former students, read this page.

I am sorry to break the news to you this way.

Chris and I were the union reps for the Columbia College Film and Video Department and we spent a lot of time together. The spring and summer of 2005 we met twice a week as a new union contract was being negotiated. It is fair to say that there was not a single person more responsible for the benefits the current adjunct Columbia film faculty enjoy than Chris Burritt. He busted his butt to get us everything he could, then would stand in the background at faculty meetings as I got to explain to the faculty our hard fought benefits.

I know a lot of people think I was responsible, but don't kid yourself it was Chris. He knew the contract inside and out, I was just a front man. And that is just the way any good camera and lighting person would want it- to be in the shadows casting light on the things that are important to see.

You will be missed.

PeterH

The Strike Beard

There is an interesting piece in the Talk of the Town section of the current New Yorker about the beards being grown as a sign of support for the writer's guild strike. Perhaps the most famous of the beards belong to David Letterman and Conan O'Brien. Jay Leno's conspicuous chin is notable for the absence of a beard, and he is about to pay a fine to the WGA as a consequence of going back to work.

The New Yorker piece is interesting to me less for the connection to the strike and more about how beards are often the result of a transitions in men's lives. "Thus we get Al Gore after the election (whiskers of grievance and release), and Ted Kaczynski in his cabin (isolation and madness), and Johnny Damon with the Red Sox (superstition)-all iconic beards in their proper context."

To that list you can add me (lazy, cold), but not so iconic. Just coincidently, but perhaps not, I stopped shaving just before the new year. We'll see how it goes. I have had a beard a few times before, just as they said in the New Yorker during times of transition. For me it was right after 9-11. I was on vacation during the event and was not shaving and just kept going for awhile until I needed to get on a plane and looked a little too Atta-esque. The last time was a couple of years ago when I had a little brush with my own mortality and had a beard for about six months.

I hope the strike ends soon.

PeterH

The Experimental Witch

The author Paulo Coelho is doing something interesting with his latest novel, The Witch of Portobello. Instead of selling the film rights to Hollywood he is inviting his readers and filmmakers to participate in making the movie. The plan is as simple as it is cutting edge. It takes advantage of all things internet and I am sure it is a great piece of publicity for the book and author.

Here are the broad strokes.

1) You select a character and chapter you want to make a short film about. The synopsis from Publishers Weekly (via Amazon) is below.

2) You register on his website. The first 200 valid filmmakers get chosen to submit a short film. http://paulocoelhoblog.com/experimental-witch/

3) You post the film to You Tube and the winning chapters will be selected. Each winning filmmaker gets a 3,ooo Euro prize.

I think it's a great idea and will sign up just to be part of it. If I get selected all the better. But mostly I think it is a great way to for an artist to share his work with others. I hope many (i.e. student readers) filmmakers register.

PeterH

From Publishers Weekly
Multimillion-seller Coelho (The Devil and Miss Prym, etc.) returns with another uncanny fusion of philosophy, religious miracle and moral parable. The Portobello of the title is London's Portobello Road, where Sherine Khalil, aka Athena, finds the worship meeting she's leading—where she becomes an omniscient goddess named Hagia Sophia—disrupted by a Protestant protest. Framed as a set of interviews conducted with those who knew Athena, who is dead as the book opens, the story recounts her birth in Transylvania to a Gypsy mother, her adoption by wealthy Lebanese Christians; her short, early marriage to a man she meets at a London college (one of the interviewees); her son Viorel's birth; and her stint selling real estate in Dubai. Back in London in the book's second half, Athena learns to harness the powers that have been present but inchoate within her, and the story picks up as she acquires a "teacher" (Deidre O'Neill, aka Edda, another interviewee), then disciples (also interviewed), and speeds toward a spectacular end. Coelho veers between his signature criticism of modern life and the hydra-headed alternative that Athena taps into. Athena's earliest years don't end up having much plot, but the second half's intrigue sustains the book. (May)
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