Tuesday, November 10, 2009

What is Film? Day Two


Saturday, November 7 was the second day of UO Portland's What is Film? conference. The schedule was mostly devoted to academic panels of papers and folks came out internationally from around the world. I love hanging out on the edges of scenes like this overhearing elevator conversations like Elevator conversation: "Silent Running is an important film. It is a forerunner to Wall-E. " This could be my crowd.

I showed up for the Q and A of a panel of papers that we about Film Production and technology issues. There were three presenters in this group. Amanda Kirchner from the University of Iowa had read a paper clled "Composite Perfomances: Recognizing the Human Elements in Computer-Generated Performances" I didn't hear her paper but got the idea of what she was talking about. particularly when she fielded a question regarding who owns the rights to Brad Pitt's body scan. Another question came up where some one had asked how we should recognize and give credit when there are motion capture performances. Who should get the credit the actor or the animator. Will Vinton weighed in and said the animator should get props. Amanda also made mention of the fact that the MTV movie awards this year had a category for best digital performance.

What I like about early sessions at conferences like this is that folks are pretty fresh and full of caffeinated. Q and As can sometimes become conversations shared. Here educators got into a conversation about how todays' students will stay away from any course that has theory in the title, The word concepts is apparently less dry and threatening.

I had intended to take the streetcar up to NW Portland and see the new Pander Brothers film, but rain and other adventures called me away from a reasonably timed collection so I returned to the conference to attend a panel session Audiences and Fans in the Digital World.

The first panelist, Elissa Nelson of the University of Texas presented a study and history of the Internet Movie Database. It was a bit of nostalgia because IMDB was one of the first Internet applications out there besides Grateful Dead Usenet groups that really caught my attention of a contributive online media that belongs to the people. I had forgotten all about Col Needham and the early days of that database. Nelson covered how the IMDB has evolved and plays a role for anyone wanting to know about movies: "blockbusters, mainstream, indie studio, and indie indies" Movie audiences consult IMDB in a huge way, often consulting the ratings and peer review. IMDB is also trying to currently situate themselves as the primary vortal for online viewing. It will be interesting to see how that turns out.

Next in this group was Rachel Thibaut of U Mass Amherst who focused on the Auteurs , a vortal and online for film fans that are fond of Criterion Collection releases and alike. She bemoaned the fact that it primarily had a male audience participating in it and talked a lot about "cinephillic practices." This last turn of phrase has been the source of much amusement to me since I heard it. "i'm a practicing cinephilliac. I can't help myself" And so on and so forth.

The last panelist, Chuck Tryon of Fayetteville University rambled about all kinds of issues and anecdotes regarding this topic but left me with a few interesting leads. I had heard of Four Eyed Monsters, its directors Susan Buice & Arin Crumley and how this film's popularity evolved through social networking and am now inspired to check it out. Additionally, Tryon told a story how the second screenings on the opening night of Bruno were greatly impacted by folks IMing, texting and Twittering their friends who attended the first show telling them that it was a dog and they should stay away. Neither Tryon or myself know how true the story is, but it makes reasonable sense when you consider Dave Chapelle's concert rumor incident in Portland in the Summer of 2009. Flickster also sounds like an interesting development.

What is Film? didn't change my life, but it did recharge my batteries and it was great to hang out in a room with folks whose passions are near the same frequency of mine/.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:01 PM
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