Tag Archives: itvs indies roundup

The ITVS Indie Roundup

Posted on by

A curated list of indie news and recommendations from ITVS’s Rebecca Huval.

And you thought the logistics of your documentary were complicated. To produce The Iran Job, Till Schauder had to stuff the footage of his documentary in his underwear while traveling to duck the U.S. embargo against Iran. The movie, about American basketballers playing in Iran, opens this fall.

Frontline has found innovative ways to repurpose leftover footage. For The Choice 2012, a biographical doc about Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, the series did more than 100 interviews. Instead of letting those go to waste, Frontline has produced the one-on-ones in a multimedia package of oral histories.

If you’re interested in writing a blockbuster feature, Raindance has broken it down into five simple steps.  Continue reading →

The ITVS Indies Roundup

Posted on by

A curated list of indie news and recommendations from ITVS’s Rebecca Huval.

This trailer for a suspenseful thriller proves that fine-tuned video editing and the right music can transform raw footage into any mood. The source material for this nail-biter is Dumb & Dumber.

If you’re worried about losing TV viewers to online streaming, you can breathe a sigh of relief. A recent media consortium test tracked an audience that drifts from tablet videos to phone to TV and back. The good news? “The growing viewership of video online and on mobile devices is not diminishing the appetite for watching television,” according to The New York Times.
Continue reading →

The ITVS Indies Roundup

Posted on by

A curated list of indie news and recommendations from ITVS’s Rebecca Huval.

Happy Friday! The Vimeo Festival Award winners have been announced today, including thought-provoking animations and an intimate documentary about a newspaper delivery boy in India. And guess what? You can watch them in their entirety at Short of the Week.

Some telling news for the TV industry: More viewers are pirating Game of Thrones than watching it on HBO. TV lovers also commonly pirate other HBO series, such as the zeitgeist-tapping Girls. As one young actress told The New York Times, “C’mon, TV should be free!” The channel costs $15.99 for subscribers on DirectTV.
Continue reading →

The ITVS Indies Roundup

Posted on by

A curated list of indie news and recommendations from ITVS’s Rebecca Huval.

Want a work-related excuse to visit the Big Apple? Our friends at POV are hosting a hackathon for storytellers and developers on the weekend of August 11-12 in NYC. The call for participants opened this week, and the deadline is June 29. Thankfully, the filmmaker applications look like a breeze to fill out.

Sometimes, the technology to tell a particular story is just out of reach. The 1938 science short film Color Vision explained how human and other animal eyes see color, more than a decade before color film had been developed.

The filmmaker of Helvetica is back in style. Gary Hustwit was a master at crowdfunding before Kickstarter was even launched, and his latest Olympic Games photo project has raised $12,000 with 28 days to go. Continue reading →

The ITVS Indies Roundup

Posted on by

A curated list of indie news and recommendations from ITVS’s Rebecca Huval.

If you want to turn a stale movie launch around, save your documentary for last. Filmmaker Liz Nord explains why she released some of her most precious interviews and multimedia experiences months before her film premiered.

You might know John Baldessari as the world-class artist who puts dots over faces in photos, but he’s so much more. Similarly, you might know Tom Waits as the gravelly singer who inhabits low-life characters, but he’s also a sassy narrator. This playful short documentary shows the lesser-known sides of both men.
Continue reading →

The ITVS Indies Roundup

Posted on by

A curated list of indie news and recommendations from ITVS’s Rebecca Huval.

The director of the classic Some Like It Hot, Billy Wilder, gave Cameron Crowe some thoughtful filmmaking advice in the 1990s. Though Wilder was talking about screenwriting, his list applies to documentary filmmaking as well, including such gems as “Grab ‘em by the throat and never let ‘em go.”

You probably know that recently released documentaries are being taught in classrooms today. But did you know that a free school essay for The Interrupters is already available online? (via Kartemquin)
Continue reading →