Films are an important part of my life. I am sucker for suspension of disblief, sotrytelling, and that unique feeling when the lights go out and the screen starts flickering. That's why I see at least  a film a week (though lately there weren't so many good ones)

I was asked by my students to prepare a list of recommended films. So this is the first batch of films that I love. In this batch I concentrated on the ones with somewhat darker themes, the next batches will include additional angles... 

Abre Los Ojos - an amazing Spanish film from 1997 by Alejandro Amenbar, tells the story of a handsome guy wounded in a car accident, who tries to rebuild his life, but believe that he is losing his mind. Beyond philosophical aspects in the tale of a man haunted by his past, this film tells his story in an appealing and intriguing way. You feel that you are loosing it with the lead actor. Do yourself a favor and skip the American version of this film - Vanilla Sky (not linking to it so you won't be tempted to go and see it). This is a great example why some films should not be touched.

Tesis - made by the same director, this psychological horror film tells the story of a film student doing a thesis on violence and media, that stumble upon a snuff film. What's so special about this film is its use of soundtrack and audio in general. In one of the scariest scenes I've seen till now in a horror film, there are no visuals, just the soundtrack of the snuff film. Scary as hell. This is an early film of Amenbar, and you can feel that it is not as polished as later ones. But the raw quality is there. The cast is pretty much the same as in Abre, and Amenbar stated that the plots are connected. Watch for yourself and try to find the links.

The Conversation - a masterpiece by Coppola. A story of a surveillance expert who feels uneasy about his last assignment, and slowly starting to feel that he is being followed. Two very unique elements in this film are the strong feeling of being watched, even as a viewer, and the last scene, when the life of the lead role crumble.

Lost Highway - Lynch made many amazing films, but this is my favorite. A story of two men who face their deepest emotions and fears in LA, filled with gangsters, porn stars, and other dark figures. This is one of those films you can watch over and over again, and get a new perspective and insight about the characters and what they mean (Lynch, you know....). My favorite scene is the one at the party early in the movie where the white faced gangaster tells Fred Medisson that he is in his house - and that he can call and find out. You don't want to know what happens next.

Watchmen - Yes, it isn't as good as the original comics, and it lost some of the layers in the original masterpiece. But still, it gets you thinking about the limitations of power. Some strong scenes, and probably one of the best opening sequences I've ever seen. Read the original, a true multilayered story with many storytelling tricks that makes you think.

Repulsion - Polanski tells a story of a young beautiful woman, left alone in her sister's apartment, slowly losing touch with reality and forced to face her deepest fears - or fantasies. one of the most disturbing I've ever seen. Watch out for the rabbit.

Chinatown - a true masterpiece, also by Polanki. Story of a PI getting way too much involved in a case of a young woman hiring his services. He wasn't perepared for the level of perversion he would face by the end of his journey.

8 MM - probably the only Nicolas Cage film worth watching. Cage is a PI asked by an elderly woman to find a girl filmed in a snuff film found in a safety deposit box of her late, rich husband. Cage is drawn to the siddy world of underground porn to find the girl, while losing himself in the process.

Black Dawn

An apocalyptic end of the world series by Webserials.

Why watch it? Nice special effects, and refreshing theme for a web show

Why not? actors are not as good as the special effects

FilmFellas

Taking a note from Scoresese masterpiece, FilmFellas is trying to capture the indie movie makers spirit.

Why watch it? beautiful images and lighting is crisp HD, interesting conversations, and the young guy is getting bashed all the time.

Why not? if you are not into filmmaking and indie movement, you'll probably get bored

Flying Kebab

A Brazilian indie project, about a young guy flying to Beirut following a letter in Arabic about his past.

Why watch it? great art work, good actors, interesting story, very good editing, great storytelling.

Why not? Episodes are not released frequently, as the project is community supported. Also, episodes are subtitled.

What is your favorite Web Show?

Did you ever read someone's Facebook status messages and learned about his personal stories through it? Did you ever read personal blogs and vlogs and felt that you are witnessing a real life story?

Last semester I lectured in a course in IDC about online storytelling, together with Noa Morag and Roni Abolafia. I wrote about it here, here and here. However I was asked several times to provide a wider overview on the topic. So here it is - an overview of immersive storytelling:

What is immersive storytelling?

Immersive storytelling is the use of social web and online video to tell a linear fictional story, through the social activities of the characters.

In cinematic storytelling, viewers experience stories by looking through a non existent wall (usually referred to as the 4th wall). The camera is accepted as given, a kind of an agreement between viewer and the actors that says: yep, we both know there is a camera here, but we accept it and actually ignore it. The emotional attachment to the characters on screen is achieved by suspension of disbelief - viewers leave their sense of reality at the entrance to the movie theater, and accept that robots, time machines[8.3/10 rating][8.3/10 rating] and radioactive naked people actually exist. In some cases, directors choose to break this rule - and change the viewers' perspective on on-screen activities.

Ian Richardson as F. Urqhuhart in House of Cards broke the 4th wall in several episodes

But what about the stories that happen to people around us? People in real life? Did you ever read someone's Facebook status messages and learned about his personal stories through it? Did you ever read personal blogs and vlogs and felt that you are witnessing a real life story?

This is the basic concept of immersive storytelling - the movie theater is replaced by Facebook and Twitter profiles, blogs, and personal vblogs.

The roles of the viewers

Unlike Alternate Reality Games, viewers do not affect the story-line. The story itself is linear, with the usual story arc. Immersive storytelling is focused on the delivery and presentation of the story, and its innovation lies in the way that the viewers experience it.

Some examples

One of the groups in our course, wrote a story about an adopted kid who, at the age of 18, decided to find his biological mother. After receiving her phone number, he called her, and found out she wasn't interested in any relationship with him. He decided to follow her, and realized she went to AA meetings. He joined her group under a nickname, and became her friend. At the end of the story, he decided not to reveal his true identity, in exchange for her friendship.

Another story was about a single fashion designer who lost her dog. A guy found it, and contacted her. They fall in love.

The first story was told through a personal blog and vlog of the kid, and his Facebook profile. Readers got updates on his search for his mother, the emotional turmoil he went through, and his resolution not to contact her.

The second story was more complex - it was told in two separate blogs on two separate social networks, in order to make the characters more reliable (it didn't make sense to have one of them on Facebook). Viewers had to follow both blogs in order to get the full scope of the story.

The students created the online entities couple of weeks prior to the beginning of the story, and then ran the story for a week.

Results

What amazed me most in this project is the emotional responses from viewers. The fact that one had to actually connect to a Facebook profile in order to be a part of the experience increased the involvement of the viewers. Also, as the students created full characters, with friends, hobbies, pictures that are not related to the story itself and day to day life, the experience was fundamentally different then most online experiences. It seems that the viewers, though some realized it a scripted drama, actually identified with the characters - the most challenging part of storytelling.

The most emotional story, with the adopted kid, got a lot of reactions and emails.

Some of the viewers were ahead of the curve. In the love story, couple of days after the woman lost her dog, one of the viewers emailed the characters, and wrote that he thought that the other character found a dog that fits the description. What is really amazing in this example is that the two characters were on completely separate social networks, with no common friends.

Challenges

As a relatively young art form, there are several challenges in any such project:

1. How to create a reliable, full and deep character? I wrote about this issue here.

2. What is ethically permitted in this art form? As the stories are told through regular social profiles, many believed that these are real people. We had to create methods to deal with it, in order not to mislead the audience.

3. How to drive viewers to the right profiles and blogs? We employed several tactics - but still there is a work to be done here.

4. How to adequately produce content, without harming its reliability? I wrote about it here.

Summary

Immersive storytelling as an art form is in its infancy. There are stories around us who are waiting to be told, and social web and online video provide powerful tools not only to distribute these stories - but also create emotional attachment that is so coveted by so many creators today.

On Tuesday, 10th of July, I will attend the first cinema and technology conference in Jerusalem. The event, part of Jerusalem Film Festival, will cover issues such as the effect of the web on filmmakers, how the Internet is changing viewers habits, and  new technologies in this field.

I am participating in a panel discussing opportunities for filmmakers in the cyberspace, with Nir Ofir from BlogTV and several other prominent Israeli figures (starting at 1030). At 1200 my friend Jeff Pulver will talk about monetization models for filmmakers.

The entrance is free- just email elad@jff.org.il and ask to add your name to the list.

On the same note - I've noticed that there are no major Facebook groups for cinema and technology. As the Internet TV group has already 140 members in just two weeks, I took the liberty of opening one on this exciting topic. You can find it here.

See you in Jerusalem.

Last weekend I walked down the streets of Paris, near Place de la Concorde, and bumped into a Nazi soldier

At first I was shocked - either I drank too much, or it was possible to travel through time and space, or Europe has gone crazy again...

Much to my relief (I am Jewish after all...) I found myself standing in the middle of a historical movie set, taking place in occupied France. All around me were WWII cars, news stands, and people dressed in long coats and hats. It was surreal to see old army tracks and buses full of extras dressed up in 40's fashion, only to get distracted by a modern day cars passing by.

I was also amazed to see the amount of equipment and staff that were on set, besides the actors. The scene was simple - two women meet at the entrance to a Metro station, and two sinister SS detectives follow them (nothing like long leather rain coats to get you typecasted)...

I counted 5 tracks of equipment, at least 30 people around the set, 2 cameras, projectors and loads of audio equipment. It made me think about how crazy all of us are, trying to create content on the cheap, as we are up against these huge productions.

For me it was an amazing experience - step into a different period in time, and see how much effort is invested in each film we see.

One of the extras told me it is the set of a film "The Lady in The Dark". I didn't find any info on it online - but it might be that there is only information in French, or that it is a working title. Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Technorati Tags: Film, filmmaking, French Film, Lady in the dark, movie set

Recently I wrote a post about the importance of a good story, mentioning the amazing book by Robert Mckee with the same title.

Not long after that, Lance Weiler, an independent film producer, director and distributor, who directed movies such as Head Trauma and The Last Broadcast, published a great post about the relation between video games and movie scripts, discussing the same McKee book.

The post, written by M.Strange, and published at the Workbook Project blog, was a real eye opener, and simplified a lot of the concepts in the original book.

Here is a small example, comparing the idea of gradual increase in tension, with difficulty levels of Bosses in most video games:

I wanted to write about Lance for some time, as he is a multidisciplinary person with strong understanding of the power of social networks and online promotion. The Workbook project, one of zillion websites, is a great source for DYI filmmaking and thought leadership.

Lance, if you are reading this post - drop me a line, I'd love to e-mail interview you for my humble blog!

Here's the song from M.Strange first movie, "We Are The Strange":

The guys behind Something To Be Desired (STBD), Galacticast, and other great shows have one thing in common - they know how to create high quality content on the cheap. Most of them are not making a dime of their work. This is not their fault - it is a market that needs to mature. But still, they create great content in micro budgets.

How can STBD make a show for fraction of the cost of a regular TV show?

First of all they have one camera. Unbelievable, right? With smart editing they manage to make it look as if there are at least two cameras on set. Second, all their actors are volunteers. So, right, it is harder to do it for a long period with professional actors, but it is a creative way to do things. Third, they don't have separate guys for editing, directing, sound, lighting, and overall production responsibility. It is all the same guy with the T-shirt. And fourth, their actors are involved in the script writing. Now compare that with the set of Studio 60....

As we all know, the world of television is changing. It is harder to get high rating for shows that are not event based. This viewership fragmentation reduces the economic value of single productions, and in time force old media producers to cut their budgets. So if there is one thing the old media guys can learn from these new energetic creators is how, with some creativity, to do things much cheaper than in the regular let's-have-a-battalion-of-people-on-the-set-cause-everyone-does-one-thing approach.

This is not new. Robert Rodriguez made El Mariachi for 7000$, using the same concepts. Did it change the movie industry? No. but I am certain that when gross revenues will drop, the Hollywood guys will wake up. TV industry can do it now.

Somehow, I don't believe it will happen...

One thing we all agree about is that independent media creators don’t have a lot of money. We wish it was different, but it is the case. Most of us are working without external financing, and don’t see a lot of money from our work. So we are using one camera, editing on our home computers, trying to cut costs in every way possible. We cannot match the money and crew invested in traditional media productions.

But there is one thing that the big guys and us can do exactly the same – write a good story.

I had the pleasure of attending the Story seminar of Robert McKee. If you have the chance to attend it – it is an amazing experience. If not, you can buy his book Story, an equally eloquent source for his vision. Robert teaches how to write a good story, with a focus on screenwriting. There are tons of books about how to write a script, but this one is different – not only it is written by a real life scriptwriter's Guru, it is also clear, direct, and with no bullshit approach. In his seminar, Robert stated that a good script is a seller’s market. There are tons of scripts out there – but not good ones.

We, unlike the film industry, don’t have a gatekeeper. We have a bigger problem – clutter, noise, tons of shows out there. It is still a major challenge to tackle, differentiate from more than 500 shows out there, and get people to watch ours. But no one can stop us from putting our content out there. Couple that with a good story, and you have a rival for big media. We have the ability to be brave. We can experiment, as we don't invest the huge amount of money the big guys are throwing in their productions.

It is true that lighting, sounds, image quality, are all important factors of production value. But a story, telling an interesting tale, is impossible to beat.

If you didn't see 300 yet - go and see ASAP. Not much of a plot (Persians want to rule the Spartans, some naked girl is mumbling, and from that point onward - dead Persians, dead Persians, dead Persian horses, dead Persians, dead elephants, and some dead Greeks), but if you watch the film as an artistic venture, it is very impressive. Not only the colors are amazing, but also some special effects create a whole new experience. They make it look like Alexander on Crack (as Deb use to say)

I came across Dan Masquelier's blog the other day, and saw something pretty neat - he remade some of the action and color effects in 300 on his own.

here is an example:

His site has longer portions of this clip, as well as other cool DIY effects.

Dan used affordable editing and effects software (Adobe After Effect and Sony Vegas), and got an amazing look and effect. This is another aspect of democratization of content creation, where the only thing stopping people from creating quality content is their talent....