This is the placeholder for the April 2009 TFMtv playlist for The Loft Cinema's First Friday Shorts. If you have a film that is showing at tonight's screening, then feel free to add the following code to your video's YouTube 'description' and 'tag' sections: FFSAPRIL2009
Doing this will auto-add your video to the playlist below (it takes about a day or so for the video to become 'searchable' enough for the playlist to find it). You can see how this works in further detail by reading the March 17th CINEMATech column on this site. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments section. Otherwise, enjoy!!
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For me, March still felt like February when the Loft’s monthly First Friday Shorts contest rolled around, but for Max, our dewy host, springtime had arrived. He was perky as a crocus pushing up through the snow, and sidekick commentator Mike Sterner had a certain bloom about him. Max kicked it off with an animated frog short, a rude and shocking animated frog short, and we all winced for the tweens in the front row.
The first flick in competition, “A Man Eating Crackers,” by Daniel Euphrat, offered an artsy meditation on the title activity, and while it took the edge off, I was not yet sated. Fortunately, Joel Lopez followed up with his mock-commercial “Condoms” about, as Lopez put it, “how wonderfully awful they are.” Catchy, inventive, funny-as-hell. I hope it is on the web. And so much home-grown talent that Lopez stands as one to watch.
Got an email today from a casting producer with ABC's "Wife Swap." Apparently, they're looking to do an episode with filmmaker families (families with one or more director that uses the rest of the family to help make movies).
The premise of Wife Swap is that one parent from each household swaps places for a week to experience how another family lives.It is an incredible family experience and opportunity to both learn and teach different family values. Let us know if you get picked!
Wife Swap is a fascinating story of what happens when two couples see themselves and their partners in a whole new light. The New York Post says, "It should be called 'Life Swap' because it's not just the wives who learn something here. It's the families."
Potential families can live anywhere in the United States, but we ask that families applying for the show consist of two parents and have at least one child, age 7 or older, living at home. Specifically, I'm looking for families of independent film makers!If you, along with your family, are hustling in the independent film scene, then I want to talk to you! To submit for the show please email a family photo and description to:
Friday, March 27th and Saturday, March 28th at 10:00 p.m. Admission: $5.00
LATE NIGHT CULT CLASSIC PRESENTED BY BOOKMANS http://www.bookmans.com THE GREATEST CULT MOVIES OF ALL-TIME ARE BACK ON THE BIG SCREEN IN 35 MM!
"Great performances, clever concept, deft direction, lotsa laughs, and some real heart & soul. A true Popcorn Classic." - Scott Weinberg, EFILMCRITIC.COM
Alex P. Keaton lept to the big-screen in 1985's BACK TO THE FUTURE, Robert Zemeckis' beloved comedy/sci-fi blockbuster that gave us Crispin Glover as a loveable nerd, Huey Lewis' inescapable hit song The Power of Love, and Michael J. Fox in his silver screen breaththrough. Marty McFly (Fox) is a teenager from 1985 who commandeers the time-traveling DeLorean invented by wacky scientist Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Llyod), and is accidentally sent back in time to the 1950s. But the real problems start after he inadvertently disrupts the first meeting between his future parents (Glover and Lea Thompson)--and his mom ends up falling for him instead. Eliciting help from the inventor of the time-machine (who is now thirty years younger), the young man must untangle the reverse Oedipal knot he's created, or he will never be born. If he can't influence them to fall in love, he might never exist! And if he somehow manages to succeed, he must then find a way to get "back to the future." (Robert Zemekis, 1985, 118 mins., rated PG) -- I don't usually link to The Loft's 'Cult Classics' since the production of these films don't really have anything to do with the Tucson filmmaking community (on the surface, at least)... but BTTF is the film that inspired me to make movies, so, I'M POSTING IT!! Go see it on Friday. I'll see you there. Butthead.
IMMENANT THREAT - Tucson Mayor and City Council may cut or eliminate all funding for Access Tucson TUESDAY!! Don’t let them take the community’s voice away!!
FACTS:
The economy is tanking, yet cable fees paid by Cox subscribers to the City of Tucson are not declining. These fees amount to $5,250,000 a year. They are not taxes although the City treats them as general fund income.
Access Tucson funding from the City of Tucson went from $1,077,690 in 2008 to $897,921 in 2009. That was a funding decrease of 17%. As a result every budget category has been cut, staff has been laid off and all remaining staff will be sent home without pay for the month of June. Just to get through June!
Access Tucson proposed to the City that significant money could be saved by co-locating their own government channel (Tucson 12) with Access Tucson to save on rent, equipment and some functions. At this point there are no signs that this is under consideration by the City.Write Comment (0 comments)
It was a sad yet fitting sign of the times for the Tucson movie industry Monday night, as movers and shakers gathered at the dilapidated Temple of Music and Art for the Tucson Film Industry Summit.
Seven panelists, consisting of the leaders of the Tucson and Phoenix film offices, a crew union rep and a Hollywood producer gathered for a muddled event that came off to me as a roundabout, two-hour pitch for donations to the foundering, Scottsdale-based Arizona Film & Media Coalition, which lobbies for the tax incentive program and wants to conduct a $50,000 study on filmmaking’s economic impact in the state.
I walked away from the meeting, which was full of contradicting messages (Our tax incentive plan isn’t good enough! Donate to us to keep it alive!) fairly depressed about the present and future of our once-thriving movie scene.
It was fitting the meeting took place Downtown, amid torn-up streets and decaying buildings. Tucson Film Office director Shelli Hall likened the tax incentive’s impact to Rio Nuevo, saying that progress has been made, but it’s difficult to see.
I think Hall was spot-on with the metaphor, only not in the way she wanted to be. The tax incentive program, instituted in 2006 and set to expire in 2010, is just like Tucson’s fumbling of Downtown renewal and attempts to keep Spring Training. Nice, well-intentioned people are spearheading these movements, and seem to lack the connections or resources to get anything significant accomplished.
Reel Inspiration is hosting an intensive weekend workshop with
master directing instructor Mark Travis.
The workshop runs from 8:30
a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on March 21-22 at Artfare, 55 N. 6h Ave. Downtown Tucson, AZ.
Come at 8 a.m. the first day to sign in. The cost to observe for pre-registered
directors and actors is $70 (with a $10 discount for APA, IFP, IFASA and NALIP
members.) Students with school ID, are $40. The cost at the door is $80 where
only cash and money orders will be accepted. *Lunch is available at a modest
price at Artfare's restaurant.
Space is limited so don't wait to
register. To get the pre-registration price register before March 13. Interested
actors and directors, contact Jana for registration information at 325-9175 or
The workshop is sponsored by Artfare, the
Tucson Film Office, Tucson Mariott University Park, and Reel
Inspiration.
Mark is the author of the Best Seller, THE DIRECTOR’S
JOURNEY: the Creative Collaboration between Directors, Writers and Actors as
well as DIRECTING FEATURE FILMS. Mark has shared his techniques at The Directors
Guild, American Film Institute, Pixar Animations Studios, UCLA Extension, and
workshops around the world. Mark is a creative consultant to film directors Mark
Rydell, George Tillman, Cyrus Nowrasteh, among others.
Last Friday at The Loft Cinema's monthly short film showdown, there was a contest first: a tie. Party host, Max Cannon, declared that the audience was split equally between two films (counting exactly 182 individual clappers in the audience - not an easy feat using only one's ears!). The two winning films were Joel Lopez's "Condom" and Phillip Lybrand's (that's me!) "Batman Versus Superman: A Duel to the Death." Max wasn't going to settle for a tie, though. No, this sort of thing called for creative thinking.
Max asked the audience what they thought should be done, and in the spirit of 'Batman vs. Superman,' the first response was "duel to the death!" And Max obliged... kinda. It was decided that the two winning filmmakers would do battle on the stage in front of the rabid audience like two Roman gladiators, but only without the bizarre historically inaccurate British accents. The game? Ro. Sham. Bo. The prize? The $200 monthly prize.
It was barely 2009 on the First Friday of January when a cheerful, mellow crowd took their seats for the monthly short film contest. But with FFS, mellow is a relative term. Unprompted, the crowd began clapping in unison for Max, our beloved host. And when he appeared, some in the crowd hollered “Take it off!”
Now everyone knows that Max is too sexy for his shirt. And everyone knows that he often taunts the audience with promises that he will disrobe, then coyly remains clad. So the calls for “Take it off!” are nothing new. Thus it was with considerable astonishment and elation (not quite presidential inauguration level, but still) that we watched as Max snatched his shirt off his chiseled torso and stood, proud and pink, nipples erect. Needless to say, we feasted our eyes. He’s looking good for an irreverent culture junkie and father of two.
Despite protesting that he was cold, Max did not seem to want to put his shirt back on. More incendiary still, he dangled the catnip of a visit to his shag-carpeted van for select audience members. The qualifications required for this coveted invitation were never quite clear.
Max opened with a ringer, “A Peanus Christmas,” a spoof of the threadbare classic “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” In the flick, a sultry adult live-action Lucy seduces an adult Charlie, but when Charlie’s drunk mom shows up, Charlie goes psycho-killer and attacks all the other characters. Funny until it went all slasher, but again I’m a wizened father of two and I’ve lost my taste for gratuitous gore. Plus I cringed for the ‘tweens who were back in the front row that night.
The evening’s first film in competition was, “My Name Is Nacho” by Robert Jaure, an animated comedy in which a big rude dude drinks devil soda and turns into a devil. More animation followed with, “Loss of Face,” by Todd Winkels, an impressionistic flow of cool spindly line drawings in which faces and female forms emerged against a static-y soundtrack. Artsy and interesting.
After another ringer, a mock-commercial for a baby doll that pees on the daddy, we saw still more animation, this time from the Basic Animation Skills Class at the Tucson Art Institute. Titled “Balls,” the compilation showed a variety of animated bouncing balls with funny sound effects.
Next came William Wilson with his film “A Moment of Christmas Zen.” Wilson introduced his film by reading from the back of a book of poetry by Star Trek’s own Leonard Nimoy. The film boasted a single shot of a giant inflatable Santa who straddles the road – Winter Haven? The crowd loved it. And Max, bare-chested and quick on the draw, picked up on the Nimoy poetry and shared some doggerel allegedly penned by William Shatner. He recited the poem, complete with his impression of Shatner’s signature speaking style, as follows:
Spock feel my jock, my cock is hard as a rock!
If that don’t leave ‘em rolling on the playground, nuthin’ will. Max then went into a rambling ode to porn food, which was hard to follow until he screened the next ringer, an extra-cheesy 1980s music video “Room Service” which featured a bevy of shirtless Chippendale’s hunks who service a sexy rich vixen when she arrives at a luxury hotel and calls for room service. Impressive hair. Then Brooke Sebold rolled out “Thief,” a tight, expertly shot and deftly edited suspense short that was short on narrative but outstanding on technique. I sat up and took notice, and so did many in the audience. Then it was time for intermission.
During intermission I ventured out to the Loft patio to hobnob, and when I returned the crowd was chanting “Zar! Zar! Zar!” Zar turned out to be the towering bearded ingénue from a homemade workout video that the Loft crew was screening for entertainment during the break. Max popped up with a carved Tiki Head mask (how does he do it? Does he keep this stuff in the van?), and Max commanded all to bow down to Zar. Yells for Zar rang out randomly through the rest of the evening.
Before going back to the films in competition, Max rolled another ringer starring bubble wrap. Without any title that I saw, the film focused on animated talking faces drawn over bubble wrap. Inevitably, giant fingers and pencils then pop the hapless bubbles, and the bubbles suffer terrible anxiety as they and their brethren get popped. Clever and funny.
Then Brooke Sebold screened her second film of the night, “Brotherhood.” It starts with a young man hitchhiking on a rural road, then his wild older brother picks him up in a car that might be stolen and insists that he drive the younger brother home on his visit from college. The two brothers bond as the tension between them grows, they run out of gas, they get more gas, they have a fight while driving, and then the cops close in. The older brother reveals that he’s on the run from the law.
Exceptionally well-crafted on every level, engaging and affecting, the film showcases outstanding directing talent. Some Googling revealed that Sebold grew up in Tucson and now lives in San Francisco. With co-directors Benita and Todd Sills, she made the acclaimed documentary “Red Without Blue” about gay identical twins, one of them transgender. We wish Sebold great things in her film career, and we hope she will bring more of her short films to FFS when she visits Tucson again.
Then the Wonderful Stories team brought “Couch” with their signature deadpan oddball humor. In the film, a couch starts talking about numbers, then the main character uses a calculator, his friend comes over, the friend is amazed by the talking couch, and they have a party. Sometimes amusing, sometimes tiresome.
Reel Inspiration is hosting a directing workshop March 21-22 with master
directing instructor Mark Travis on \"Working with Actors in Rehearsal, Staging
and Performance.\" Day 1, Mark will lecture and demonstrate with 3-4 actors the
Travis Technique as a powerful tool to explore the characters within the actors.
Day 2, pre-selected directors will be coached as they direct two-actor scenes
while being observed by an audience of directors and actors.
Mark is the
author of the Best Seller, THE DIRECTOR?S JOURNEY: the Creative Collaboration
between Directors, Writers and Actors as well as DIRECTING FEATURE FILMS. Mark
has shared his techniques at The Directors Guild, American Film Institute, Pixar
Animations Studios, UCLA Extension, and workshops around the world. Mark is a
creative consultant to film directors Mark Rydell, Geo rge Tillman, Cyrus
Nowrasteh, among others.
I’m not sure if it was the spirit of giving brought on by the holidays, or a warm theater on a cold night, or just the several pints of beer, but love was in the air at the Loft’s First Friday Shorts contest this December, and the hook-up sparks were flying. Or maybe it was because the Daily Star’s own Caliente picked FFS as a great first date spot. Thanks to the Caliente plug, Max dubbed himself “Cupid” for the evening, then picked and paired several singles from the audience for the duration of the show. I’m pretty sure some lucky film fan got to visit Max’s groovy shag-carpeted van after show, too. I keep angling for an invitation to the van myself, but Max just soaks me for beer money and never gives me the nod.
As usual, Max led off the night’s screenings with a ringer, a darkly comical mock-commercial for herpes medication. Maybe abstinence ain’t so bad after all. The first film in competition, “Devil Fish” by Patrick (missed the last name), followed an animated little fish chased by an animated big fish. And Harrison Sim’s “Red Shirt Man” followed, another animated tale with a little guy punching out an evil blind man. So far, the little guys were fighting hard and the blind first date couples were saying hello. The next Max pick, a short about a restaurant called IHFM (I Hate Fucking Mondays) spoofed the TGIF restaurant chain, and it’s worth a look:
This is the placeholder for the April 2009 TFMtv playlist for The Loft Cinema's First Friday Shorts. If you have a film that is showing at tonight's screening, then feel free to add the following code to your video's YouTube 'description' and 'tag' sections: FFSAPRIL2009
For me, March still felt like February when the Loft’s monthly First Friday Shorts contest rolled around, but for Max, our dewy host, springtime had arrived. He was perky as a crocus pushing up through the snow, and sidekick commentator Mike Sterner had a certain bloom about him. Max kicked it off with an animated frog short, a rude and shocking animated frog short, and we all winced for the tweens in the front row. 
Got an email today from a casting producer with ABC's "Wife Swap." Apparently, they're looking to do an episode with filmmaker families (families with one or more director that uses the rest of the family to help make movies).
Friday, March 27th and Saturday, March 28th at 10:00 p.m.
It was barely 2009 on the First Friday of January when a cheerful, mellow crowd took their seats for the monthly short film contest. But with 
Reel Inspiration is hosting a directing workshop March 21-22 with master
directing instructor Mark Travis on \"Working with Actors in Rehearsal, Staging
and Performance.\" Day 1, Mark will lecture and demonstrate with 3-4 actors the
Travis Technique as a powerful tool to explore the characters within the actors.
Day 2, pre-selected directors will be coached as they direct two-actor scenes
while being observed by an audience of directors and actors.
