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Small Business Love

We’re regulars at DC’s Basecamp, a local printing and shipping shop.  It’s where we buy reams of recycled paper, drop off left over shipping boxes to be reused and send hundreds of DVD screeners to film festivals and distributors.  But the main reason we frequent Basecamp is the owner Raj, […]

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It’s that time of year again: Silverdocs!

It’s that time of year again.  It’s hot and sticky and the best relief in town is to sit in a beautiful air conditioned movie theater watching documentary films. That’s right, it’s time for Silverdocs, the annual week-long documentary festival sponsored by AFI & Discovery. As a contributor to the […]

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Art Tuesdays: Boston Globe’s Big Picture

Have you seen Boston Globe’s Big Picture photo blog? If not, you should.  It’s a series of photos organized by recent news subject: immigration, conflict in the Middle East, natural disasters.  The photography needs no caption; the stories are told instead through powerful images.  A lot of people can take […]

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Logging Verite

Our latest project is a cinema verite short about a local men’s fashion store in a gentrifying DC neighborhood. We’ve spent almost two full days in the store filming the salesmen chatting with each other and interacting with customers. We’ve asked a few questions, but nearly of our filming time […]

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Art Tuesdays: Illustration

Even the wordiest of magazine publications, The New Yorker, uses some form of art. Yet instead of glossy photographs, the prestigious zine uses illustration. I recently discovered the video below on Drawn, a blog featuring illustration, animation and cartoons. It details the artistic process of New Yorker illustrator Tom Bachtell: [brightcove […]

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The challenge of profiting from social issue films

The New York Times recently published an article about Participant Media‘s struggle to profit from films they distribute about the important issues of our time. It’s no secret that social-issue docs and thoughtful fiction indies sell significantly worse than major blockbuster thrillers in 3D.  Yet Participant’s efforts are compelling. They […]

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The Art of the Interview

I recently came across a 2006 eulogy written by Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair about Oriana Fallaci, an Italian journalist who joined the resistance as a youth during WWII then spent the rest of her life questioning the exertion of power.  Hitchens draws an interesting comparison between an interview conducted […]