Kendra Elliot returns in the stunning sequel to Deep Focus . . .
Micro Movie Essay #2 -- Shallow Focus:
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Prescription for the future of cinema -- go back to the beginning and rethink everything.
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Monday, March 15
MICRO MOVIE ESSAY: SHALLOW FOCUS
by
Lloydville
on Mon 15 Mar 2010 12:01 AM PDT
Kendra Elliot returns in the stunning sequel to Deep Focus . . . Micro Movie Essay #2 -- Shallow Focus: YouTube Facebook Fan Page Prescription for the future of cinema -- go back to the beginning and rethink everything. Saturday, March 13
MICRO MOVIE ESSAY: DEEP FOCUS
by
Lloydville
on Sat 13 Mar 2010 07:47 AM PST
 In a stunning departure which has left the film world breathless, Majestic Micro Movies launches a new series -- miniature essays on cinema by Jae Song and friends, dedicated with much love to J-L G. First up: Micro Movie Essay #1 -- Deep Focus: YouTube Facebook Fan Page Prescription for the future of cinema -- go back to the beginning and rethink everything. Thursday, March 11
THERE'S ALWAYS ANOTHER BAR
by
Lloydville
on Thu 11 Mar 2010 12:01 AM PST
 . . . at the dark end of the street. Hugh McCarten stars in the newest Noir Bars: New York offering from Majestic Micro Movies -- a series of extremely short tales of lost souls in desolate bars on the boulevard of broken dreams . . . now playing on a computer or portable device near you: Noir Bar #8 YouTube Facebook Fan Page Watch all the films in the series as they roll out, then order a stiff drink and try to forget them. Tuesday, March 9
IN RETROSPECT
by
Lloydville
on Tue 09 Mar 2010 10:59 AM PST
 You know what that means . . . The latest offering in the Noir Bars: New York series from Majestic Micro Movies -- extremely short tales of lost souls in dark bars on dead-end streets . . . now playing on a computer or portable device near you: Noir Bar #7 YouTube Facebook Fan Page Watch all the films in the series as they roll out, then order a stiff drink and try to forget them. Wednesday, March 3
A DARKER SHADE OF NOIR
by
Lloydville
on Wed 03 Mar 2010 12:34 AM PST
 A new offering in the Noir Bars: New York series from Majestic Micro Movies -- extremely short tales of lost souls in dark bars on dead-end streets . . . this one featuring Kristy Jordan, who is not guilty, baby . . . now playing on a computer or portable device near you: Noir Bar #6 YouTube Facebook Fan Page Watch all the films in the series as they roll out, then order a stiff drink and try to forget them. Tuesday, March 2
DUBAI BLUES
by
Lloydville
on Tue 02 Mar 2010 05:32 PM PST
 A new offering in the Noir Bars: New York series from Majestic Micro Movies -- extremely short tales of lost souls in dark bars on dead-end streets . . . this one featuring Matt Barry and now playing on a computer or portable device near you: Noir Bar #5 YouTube Facebook Fan Page Watch all the films in the series as they roll out, then order a stiff drink and try to forget them. Saturday, February 27
NOIR BARS #4
by
Lloydville
on Sat 27 Feb 2010 12:19 AM PST
 The fourth movie in the Noir Bars: New York series from Majestic Micro Movies -- extremely short tales of lost souls in desolate bars on dead-end streets. Now playing on a computer or portable device near you -- a report from girlworld: Noir Bar #4 YouTube Facebook Fan Page Watch all the films in the series as they roll out, then order a stiff drink and try to forget them. Tuesday, February 23
A NEW APPROACH TO NARRATIVE
by
Lloydville
on Tue 23 Feb 2010 12:43 AM PST
 Following up on a previous essay, "An Experiment In Narrative", Matt Barry has written a broader survey of the state of Internet cinema, in which he argues that the term "short film", with all its (increasingly irrelevant) cultural baggage, needs to be abandoned. Distinguishing something as a "short film" implies that regular films are "long", but today, on the Internet, regular films are short -- long films are the exception. In some ways it would make more sense to refer to those things they're showing at the multiplexes as "long films".  The question, of course, is one of orientation in a time when the mainstream of cinema is shifting. I would guess that for most people under the age of forty, most of the films they watch in any given year, by far, are short Internet movies -- feature-length films, seen in theaters or on DVD, would run a distant second. So what do we mean when we talk about "the movies" today? Where is the real center of the form? Matt also makes a useful distinction between "narrative" and "story". To my way of thinking, a narrative, a logical exposition of a sequence of events, is not by any means always a story. To me, a story is something that makes you lean forward and say, "Wait a minute, how did this happen -- what's going to happen next?" A narrative doesn't automatically do this. Check out the essay here: "A New Approach To Narrative" Sunday, February 21
PARADISE RECLAIMED
by
Lloydville
on Sun 21 Feb 2010 12:29 AM PST
 [Photo © 1960 William Klein] An excerpt from a 2000 profile of Jean-Luc Godard by Richard Brody in The New Yorker: During our interview, Godard referred to the New Wave not only as "liberating" but also as "conservative." On the one hand, he and his friends saw themselves as a resistance movement against "the occupation of the cinema by people who had no business there." On the other, this movement had been born in a museum, the Cinémathèque: Godard and his peers were steeping themselves in a cinematic tradition -- that of silent films -- that had disappeared almost everywhere else. Thus, from the beginning, Godard saw the cinema as a lost paradise that had to be reclaimed. If love of the cinema of the past doesn't point the way to new, revolutionary work -- as love of ancient Greek art sparked the innovations of the Renaissance -- then it's just an exercise in nostalgia. In other words, the cinema of the past can be alive as a cultural force, as it was for the young French cinéastes of the Fifties, just as ancient Greek art was alive for the artists of the Renaissance. The parade has not gone by -- it may even be passing this way: Majestic Micro Movies MMM Facebook Fan Page Saturday, February 20
NOIR BARS #3
by
Lloydville
on Sat 20 Feb 2010 04:57 PM PST
 The third movie in the Noir Bars: New York series from Majestic Micro Movies -- extremely short tales of lost souls in desolate bars on dead-end streets. Now playing on a computer or portable device near you -- a whole chain reaction of disaster: Noir Bar #3 YouTube Facebook Fan Page Watch all the films in the series as they roll out, then order a stiff drink and try to forget them. [Image by Alfred Stieglitz, 1903] Wednesday, February 17
ANOTHER NOIR BAR
by
Lloydville
on Wed 17 Feb 2010 08:07 AM PST
 Now playing on a computer or portable device near you . . . the second movie in the Noir Bars: New York series from Majestic Micro Movies -- extremely short tales of lost souls in dark bars on dead-end streets. Have a look: Noir Bar #2 YouTube Facebook Fan Page Watch all the films in the series as they roll out, then order a stiff drink and try to forget them. [Some explicit language in this one.] Monday, February 15
AN EXPERIMENT IN NARRATIVE
by
Lloydville
on Mon 15 Feb 2010 12:03 AM PST
 Matt Barry -- a fellow filmmaker and blogger and collaborator on the experiment in question -- just posted an insightful piece about Majestic Micro Movies on his site, The Art and Culture Of Movies. The site is filled with interesting thoughts about movies from every era . . . including a two-part essay with great screen-grabs on the films of Edwin S. Porter. (You can access Part 1 here and Part 2 here -- together they'll give you a nice little overview of the landscape of early film as the era of narrative began.) That's Matt above in the Noir Bars: New York film from Majestic Micro Movies he starred in, which will be appearing online soon. It was shot and directed by Jae Song. I know what you're thinking -- it must have taken Jae forever to light that scene, with the baby spot catching Matt's eye and the ominous shadow behind him . . . but no, it was done on the fly with available light in a dark bar and a camera so small that no one knew Jae and Matt were making a movie there. So cool. Sunday, February 14
A NOIR BAR
by
Lloydville
on Sun 14 Feb 2010 12:03 AM PST
 Today is the premiere of the first movie in the Noir Bars: New York series from Majestic Micro Movies -- extremely short tales of lost souls in dark bars on dead-end streets. Have a look at it -- a little Valentine from Majestic Micro Movies to you: Noir Bar #1 YouTube Vimeo Majestic Micro Movies Home Site Watch all the films in the series as they roll out, then order a stiff drink and try to forget them. [With thanks to American Gallery for the Andrew Loomis Ladies Home Journal cover from 1949.] Saturday, February 13
SURFING THE MICRO WAVE
by
Lloydville
on Sat 13 Feb 2010 12:16 AM PST
 First there was the French New Wave -- an attempt by filmmakers to retake control of cinema from the commercial or state-sponsored studios and get back to basics. Now there's the American Micro Wave, which is basically the same thing, necessary because the eruption of cinematic invention sparked by the young directors of the New Wave has been smothered once again in corporate standardization and dehumanization.  The Micro Wave is about micro movies. This is nothing new. Micro movies dominated the early years of cinema exhibition, and micro movies dominate the Internet. The question is, can modern micro movies on the Internet get more sophisticated than cute clips from home videos, or pseudo-narratives designed to show off the filmmakers' technical skills, basically just self-generated commercials?  In short, can modern micro movies learn to tell real stories, just as directors of the nickelodeon era learned to tell real stories?  Finally, is this new Micro Wave really a wave? Too soon to tell, unless you're in the water. You can't see a wave coming until the sea-swells meet the curve of the seabed running up to the beach, lifting a crest so high that it breaks on the sand. But you can feel it if you're out swimming in it. All I can say is, "Come on in -- the water's fine!" ["Mermaid" illustration by D. S. Walker, with thanks as so often to Golden Age Comic Book Stories, where wonders never cease.] Thursday, February 11
MAJESTIC FILMMAKING
by
Lloydville
on Thu 11 Feb 2010 12:03 AM PST
 The first of the Noir Bars: New York series from Majestic Micro Movies will be going online in a few days. Here's how they were made. Beginning with a short written monologue, Jae Song cast an actor, worked with him or her on the reading and then recorded the monologue on a small digital device.  In the course of this process, Jae and the actor in a sense created the character, or found one of the many characters lurking in, made possible by, the written text. What they did was prompted by the script but shaped by the actor's sense of it and Jae's sense of what would work as a voice-over on film.  They then repaired to a bar and began improvising behavior. Since the camera Jae was using was so small, and since he was shooting with available light and not taking live sound (apart from ambient bar sound), no one really noticed that they were making a movie. Drinking began. Jae followed his instincts visually and when he had what he needed, or when his storage card or battery in the camera ran out of space or juice, drinking continued uninterrupted. The whole shoot rarely lasted more than an hour or two.  Then Jae began the only part of the work he found tedious -- editing. Fortunately his roommate Joe Griffin, a fellow filmmaker who also starred in one of the films, helped out with this.  The films only last a couple of minutes. The challenge was to create real characters and situate them in real stories. Only a brief glimpse into the character's narrative could be captured, of course, but the idea was to come up with something beyond a character study, or an anecdote -- something that would set the mind to wondering . . . how did this character get into this predicament? What's going to become of this character? When you ask questions like that, you are in the realm of a genuine story. |
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