Digital Video - August 2008 - (Page 6)

DV UPDATE MOUNTAIN HIGH SONY STEPS UP TO ASSIST IN THE SUNDANCE INSTITUTE DIRECTOR’S LAB WORKSHOPS. BY JAY HOLBEN T his past June, I had the extraordinary privilege of being invited to get a glimpse inside a true independent filmmaking institution: the Sundance Institute’s Director’s Lab. The Institute was originally created by Robert Redford in 1981 as a nonprofit organization dedicated to the development of the art of independent motion pictures. At the time, Redford gathered a group of his friends and colleagues together in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah — where he had years before filmed part of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and fallen in love with the stunning countryside. The inspiration for the gathering was to create an environment that would foster independence, discovery and new voices in American film. That spring, 10 emerging directors were invited to the first Sundance Institute Filmmakers/Directors Lab, where they worked with leading writers and directors to develop their independent film projects. This program has since continued quietly for nearly three decades. Now, every summer, eight emerging filmmakers are chosen to work on their respective projects — to develop the story, work with actors and crew to actually shoot select scenes from their script, and workshop those scenes — during a three-week stay at Sundance. They are guided by a team of professional advisors who come from Hollywood and donate their time to help the filmmakers. This year, just a few of these Hollywood professiondv august 2008 als included directors such as Randa Haines, Jeremy Kagan, and John August, cinematographers such as Caleb Deschanel, Robert Elswit and Vilmos Zsigmond, actors such as Christine Lahti, Charles Dutton, and, of course, actor-producer-director Robert Redford himself. Each week, a new team of advisors comes to the institute to see the filmmaker’s work and offer their thoughts. For almost 30 years, the Director’s Lab has thrived with little significant press or fanfare, though the likes of Quentin Tarantino (who worked on Reservoir Dogs there), Darren Aronofsky (Pi) and Paul T. Anderson (Hard Eight), among many others, have had their first features fostered through it. “The work here is really for the filmmaker and the creative process,” explains Ian Calderon, the institute's Director of Digital Initiatives. “We offer our filmmakers a degree of comfort where they are not pressured to perform. They can experiment, and they can make mistakes, which is, of course, the ultimate form of discovery. To respect that notion and to honor the process the press and public are not generally part of the equation.” “Basically, the filmmakers are getting the opportunity to develop a script practically by actually shooting scenes and seeing them through editing,” adds Michelle Satter, director of the Sundance Feature Program. “It’s a hands-on process, where they learn by doing rather than learning theoretically. We work with them to select the most challenging scenes that represent the www.dv.com 6 PHOTO BY JAY HOLBEN Actress Melanie Nichols-King on the set of writer/ director John Magary’s Blood Abundance. John was one of handful of students invited to participate in Sundance’s annual Directors and Screenwriters Labs. http://www.dv.com

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Digital Video - August 2008 Contents DV Update My Studio Close-Up Wristshot HV30 Camcorder Tiffen DFX Bench Test PCM-D50 & R-09HR Recorders Camera Cradle Instant Expert My Passport Elite High School Confidential The Ultimate DIY Raid DV101 Click to Play Production Diary

Digital Video - August 2008

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