CLIENT NEWS: National & New York TV Segments for Film Opening in Theaters Across the U.S.

CLIENT NEWS: National & New York TV Segments for Film Opening in Theaters Across the U.S.

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CLIENT NEWS: National Media Attention for Documentary Film Client

Documentary film featured on CNN live from Sundance Film Festival 2011 - 1/23/11 on Vimeo.

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CLIENT NEWS: National Media Attention for Non-Profit Leader, Health Expert

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CLIENT NEWS: National Media Attention for the National Black Farmers Association

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August 2010



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Life in a Day Launched by Filmmakers, YouTube and Sundance

I read in The Washington Post today about a new YouTube online documentary project coordinated with the Sundance Film Festival. It's called "Life in a Day".

It's certainly an interesting concept. It reminds me of some of the interesting "digital ethnography" research that has been done using YouTube videos. So this new documentary film project - involving Ridley Scott, Kevin Macdonald and the respected Sundance Institute - is one I'll be interested to see develop and in final form. Electronics-maker LG is listed as the corporate funder (though it's not mentioned in the article below or in the promo video, and its unclear what the company's role will be or what they get out of it other than visibility). YouTube and video projects like this one that take advantage of the platform will be explored in the Internet and Mobile Strategy Lab course I'm teaching at Johns Hopkins University in DC this fall.

The whole world seems to watch YouTube, and now a filmmaking team led by Oscar-winning documentary director Kevin Macdonald and producer Ridley Scott wants to use YouTube to turn a camera on the world.

Announced Tuesday, the project, called "Life in a Day," will seek nonfiction video submissions from around the globe in hopes of weaving together a snapshot collage of one 24-hour period of human life.

The idea is to encourage would-be directors to take out their cameras on July 24, shoot some footage and upload the results to YouTube, no editing required. Macdonald will sift through the entries and curate a full-length documentary using the clips as raw material. He also plans to show the final product at the Sundance Film Festival in January, with YouTube picking up the tab to fly 20 of the top submitters to the premiere in Park City, Utah.

Check out the original Los Angeles Times article from July 7 (reprinted in the Post today). Here is the YouTube promotional video for the project embedded below:

The Oath opens at Landmark E Street Cinema this Friday, July 9

The Oath, from award-winning director Laura Poitras, opens at Landmark E Street Cinema this Friday, July 9. Poitras, a Chicken & Egg Pictures grantee, will participate in a Q&A following the premiere.

According to the film's website:

THE OATH tells the story of Abu Jandal, Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard, and Salim Hamdan, a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay Prison and the first man to face the controversial military tribunals. Filmed in Yemen and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, THE OATH is a family drama about two men whose fateful encounter in 1996 set them on a journey that would lead to Osama bin Laden, 9/11, Guantanamo Bay Prison, and the U.S. Supreme Court. The film begins as Salim Hamdan is set to face war crime charges at Guantanamo, and Abu Jandal is a free man and drives a taxi in Yemen.

We enter the story in a taxicab in Yemen. Here we meet Abu Jandal, the film’s central protagonist, as he transports passengers through the chaotic streets of Yemen’s capital city, Sana’a. Salim Hamdan is the film’s “ghost” protagonist. He was arrested in Afghanistan shortly after 9/11 and taken to Guantanamo. His seven-year captivity at Guantanamo is narrated through his prison letters.

Source: Landmark Theaters

Trailer:



Source: Zeitgeist Films

Using YouTube to Support Aspiring Journalists (with a marketing plug)

If you're not aware of it already, check out YouTube Project:Report an interesting project with the Pulitzer Center that's funded by Sony and Intel. According to the site:

Through Project: Report, the Pulitzer Center is giving aspiring journalists the opportunity to work on a journalism project of global importance. The Center is awarding a $10,000 grant to each of the five winners to cover travel expenses, and will provide support in the development and distribution of their work.

There are lots of corporate projects using YouTube and short films/videos, including Volvo for Life which provides funding to support the people/projects featured in the videos.

Rose Mapendo, the subject of the powerful documentary Pushing the Elephant (which was supported by Chicken & Egg Pictures, a client) and the spokesperson for the non-profit Mapendo International, was profiled by VFL. Here's that video: