John Menick

An excerpt from from Digital Content Producer’s article on the tapeless HD workflow of David Fincher‘s upcoming Zodiac:

“There is the danger, of course, of technology getting obsolete, but we’re better off, certainly, than movies done many years ago because, at the end of the day, we are creating so many high-quality masters,” Mavromates says. “We will have about six original digital negatives for this movie, the original data, different HD versions, a film master, and all those HD DVDs out there. They’ll be able to re-master this movie some day, if they want to — they won’t have to piece it all together from scratch. To me, this is the future of how movies will be made. Digital cinematography is still in its adolescence, and it will mature very quickly, so our workflow will only improve along with it.”

That is certainly Fincher’s firm conviction.

“We could lose data some day, but let’s be honest — that’s always been the case with film, as well,” Fincher says. “Somebody find me a good print of Lawrence of Arabia, or a decent restored print of Rear Window. Everyone says we won’t have the resolution of 35mm, but the truth is, 35mm is maybe 4K, and that’s before they do things to it. You have all this color space with film, but you don’t ever use all that color space. As soon as you drop an orange filter over [the lens], you have suddenly limited your blue and green color space, for instance. And by the time you dupe it to inter-positive, then to inter-negative, and go to three dupe negs or six dupe negs, and make 3,000 release prints, then you are looking at something, in most cases, just over 1K. So I think it’s silly to get attached to [film] like that.”

The lecture is from June, but I can’t tell when the video was posted.

It also looks like volume 2 of the Poetics of Cinema has been published in French.

Previews of 40 films.

The Disappearance is part of the traveling group exhibition In the poem about love you don’t write the word love opening on Thursday November 16, 6-8PM at Artists Space. The exhibition is curated by Tanya Leighton. From the press release:

In The Poem About Love You Don’t Write The Word Love takes the distinction that French critic Serge Daney made between the “image” and the “visual” as a starting point for a selection of works in this two-part exhibition. Daney’s distinction refers to an “image” that can critically challenge and destabilize predominant models of information, resisting the “purely technical,” that which is nothing other than the verification that something functions. Through various strategies of dislocation or slippage, these works stage an unsettling tension that challenges visual conventions in an increasingly mediated culture.

Artists include:

Artists: Ayreen Anastas, Marcel Broodthaers, François Bucher, Matthew Buckingham, Bruce Conner, Bernadette Corporation, Jeremy Deller, Gardar Eide Einarsson, Harun Farocki and Andrei Ujica, Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville, Sharon Hayes, Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson, Emily Jacir, Gareth James, Alexander Kluge, Phillip Lai, David Lamelas, Simon Martin, John Menick, Avi Mograbi, Lucas Ospina, Giulio Paolini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Mai-Thu Perret, Walid Raad, Jose Alejandro Restrepo, Marc Robinson, Keith Sanborn, Allan Sekula, John Smith, Sue Tompkins, Andy Warhol

The exhibition is followed by a great film program at Anthology this winter. Here is the full line-up:

Film Program
Mondays from January 8 through February 12 at Anthology Film Archives located at 32 Second Avenue (at Second Street)
For showtimes, please visit our website, www.artistsspace.org or visit www.anthologyfilmarchives.org

Program 1
Bruce Conner Report (1963-1967) 13 min.
Alexander Kluge The Blind Director (1986) 113 min.

Program 2
Andy Warhol Outer and Inner Space (1965) 33 min.
Pier Paolo Pasolini Notes For An African Orestes (1968/69) 75 min.
François Bucher Television (an address)—Ernesto Samper Addresses Washington, January 20th. Inauguration Day (2005) 20 min.

Program 3
Marcel Broodthaers La Pipe (Magritte) (1969) 3 min.
Marcel Broodthaers Ceci ne serait pas une pipe (Un Film du Musée d’Art Moderne) (This wouldn’t be a pipe) (1969-71) 2 min. 20 sec.
Marcel Broodthaers La Pipe (Gestalt, Abbildung, Figur, Bild) (1969-71) 4 min. 20 sec.
Ayreen Anastas Pasolini Pa* Palestine (2003) 60 min.

Program 4
Harun Farocki and Andrei Ujica Videograms of a Revolution (1992) 106 min.
Matthew Buckingham Situation Leading to a Story (1999) 21 min.
Jeremy Deller and Mike Figgis Battle of Orgreave (2001) 60 min.

Program 5
David Lamelas The Invention of Dr. Morel (2000) 23 min.
Phillip Lai His Divine Grace (2000) DVD 25 min.
Bernadette Corporation Get Rid of Yourself (2002) 60 min.
Program 6
Avi Mograbi How I Learned to Overcome My Fear and Love Arik Sharon (1997) 61 min.
Walid Raad Hostage—The Bachar Tapes (2001) 16 min.

Also on Expanded Cinema: Marker, Farocki, and Kubelka. Curated by Joao Ribas.

From Expanded Cinema:

Chilean expatriate director Raul Ruiz weaves a lurid, circular tale of murder and fate in this 20 minute film, comprised mostly of still photos.

Taking its title from the series of barking dogs interspersed throughout the film, the narrative centers on Monique, a woman who descends into a world of exploitation, betrayal, and eventually, murder. Told through a combination of voice-over narration, still images, and passages of 35mm film, it makes deft use of repetition, humor, deadpan narration, and visual economy to create a sense of fatal recurrence in this tabloid-inspired melodrama.

I’ll be in Paris next week for two screenings of Occupation in the Parisian ‘burbs. The first is in Les Lilas, at Espace Khiasma, on October 11 at 9 PM. Check Espace Khiasma’s Web site for more info and directions.

The second screening will be at Cinéma Le Studio 2 in Aubervilliers on Friday, October 13, 8:30 PM, where we shot one key scene in the project. Eli Lotar’s Aubervilliers will also be screened at Studio 2. A talk with Jack Ralite, Aubervilliers’ longtime mayor, is scheduled to follow.

More info (in French).

An interview with curator Yvane Chapuis about my short video, Occupation.

From The Guardian:

An era in amateur film-making is coming to an end. The factory in Lausanne, Switzerland, that processes Europe’s supplies of Kodachrome – grainy, colour-saturated frames of 8mm film that have convinced a generation that their 60s and 70s childhood and adolescence was spent leaping through flowers in a Technicolor haze – is shutting its doors on Saturday. The ritual of shooting a three-minute masterpiece on your Super 8 camera, sending off the film in a little yellow envelope and waiting with barely contained excitement for the ready-to-project reel to drop on to the doormat is over. If you want to get your Kodachrome film developed now, you are going to have to get in touch with an outfit in Kansas called Dwayne’s Photo, and hope for the best.