by Mark Cantor A Brief Introduction Every so often, questions arise concerning the soundtrack of the SOUNDIE Sugar Hill Masquerade, which is actually the standard tune by Henry Cramer (lyrics) and Turner Layton (music), After You’ve Gone. This is somewhat surprising since, production documents aside, the featured soloist is clearly Roy Eldridge, and he performs the familiar arrangement of the...
Everything Old Is New Again: An Introduction to ‘The Soundies’ and Author Mark Cantor
If you thought that music videos were a recent phenomenon, I think you’d be surprised to know that the idea of music videos has been around for a very long time. In fact, the first time someone sang a song in front of a camera with a primitive recording method somehow synchronized to the picture, we had the first music video. Yes,...
Rants and Raves: More Noise Than Signal
by Ron Merk All I can hear is the noise! What happened to the signal? If you’ve never heard the term “signal to noise ratio” then you might not get my reference above. From Wikipedia: “Signal-to-noise ratio is a measure used in science and engineering that compares the level of a desired signal to the level of background noise. It...
I Really Hate Copyright Theft, But I Also Hate the Idea of a “Private System of Justice”
“How do you combat internet piracy? You give consumers six strikes — sort of. The Center for Copyright Information, a joint venture of entertainment copyright holders and internet service providers (ISPs), has launched the Copyright Alert System (CAS). Here’s how it works: A content owner/copyright holder will notify a participating ISP if they believe a consumer has been illegally downloading...
An Interview with Sari Gilman, Director of the Oscar-Nominated “Kings Point”
Kings Point is a startlingly candid look into the lives of people who have spent decades living at the Florida retirement community of the same name. In this 30-minute film, which has been nominated for an Academy Award in the Documentary Short category, San Francisco-based director Sari Gilman features five seniors, who reveal their thoughts and feelings about aging, love,...
Distribulation: Distribution then and Now
A little over ten years ago I interviewed two prominent indie filmmakers, Jon Moritsugu and Yvonne Welbon, in order to hear their opinions and experiences regarding self-distribution. I decided to revisit this article by asking them similar questions tailored to reflect the changes in technology and distribution methods that have taken place since I first interviewed them. Below is a...
File Sharing or Film Stealing?
by Ron Merk With the unveiling of Mega, a new file-sharing service created by Kim Dotcom, founder of the now defunct Megaupload, the debate over whether file-sharing is copyright infringement rages on. Is sharing a movie with a friend “copying” it, and therefore, a copyright infringement. Or is it like sharing a magazine that you buy at the corner newspaper...
eZ-Pz. : 2013 – a fresh opportunity to do that dream project
2013 – a fresh opportunity to do that dream project Each year starts with January first and ends with December 31st. That means that creative people have at least 365 opportunities to do something new, something innovative, something important. There are at least seven billion stories to tell, if we just take one from every person on earth. Each one...
Enter Spire: An Interview with Paul Pearson of Spire
interview by Diane Karagienakos Imagine you have the chance to have a drink with your favorite artist. A drink and a long conversation, and after you walk away with a deeper understanding of their music/film/photography/etc. And just like you, they’ve had banal jobs and disappointments and people who inspired them and moments of sweetness and sadness. Many of these things...
A Thousand and One Words: Making Feature Films May Be A Fool’s Errand in Today’s Marketplace
by Ron Merk I’ve spent my entire lifetime in the feature film business, as both a producer-director-writer, and an importer and distributor. While I won’t get nostalgic about the “good old days,” there was a time when one could make a feature film, get it into distribution, recoup the negative cost and make a profit, then move on to the...
