Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Artists Statements

This year it's very important to us that we extend the AUDIENCE MATTERS initiative into the OPEN FRAME FILM FEST.

This is a department-wide initiative that focuses on helping students consider, receive and respond to the feedback from audiences.

The first important step is to help audiences understand the point of view of the artist. In order to do that, we're asking student artists across the major to develop an "artists statement" to help the artists consider the audience and to help the audience think about the artistic process.

You should submit your artist statement by no later than Wednesday at 5 pm. No films will play in the Open Frame that do not have an accompanying artist statement.

What is an artist statement?

Briefly: An explanation of the creative inspiration, process, formal constraints and motivation behind your film.

Your artist statement might include some or all of the following:

Your artist statement shouldn't be longer than 300 words, It shouldn't be shorter than 200.

You could talk about what inspired this piece.

You should talk about the genre that it belongs to -- what is "normative" in that genre, how you build on those expectations and how you contradict them.

I hope that you'll describe the process of making your film, focusing on any unique achievements, approaches, obstacles or effects.

Ideally, you should explain what you hope that movies give to the world -- and how or why you want to participate in that giving.

It would be great if you would mention what you hope an OPEN FRAME audience will appreciate about your film.



the artist statements WILL be posted publicly for people to read BEFORE the festival -- so *don't* include any spoilers.

If you'd like to include a photo for me to use with your statement (a still from the film or from the production) that would be great. If you don't give me one, I'll grab one myself!

Here are some examples of excellent statements from last year:

Hidden Liabilities

Customer Satisfaction

Never a Bride

Friday, April 6, 2012

RECORD NUMBER OF STUDENT FILMS




Yesterday was submission day for the Open Frame Film Fest, and I'm delighted to announce that we received a record number of entries of student films (15!) and the quality and diversity of them is equally delightful.

If you can come on April 14th, you can expect to see comedy, stop-motion, drama, a civil-war period film, documentaries, animals, a hip hop music video, a Jane Austen adaptation, coming-of-age, satire/spoofs, a sociological experiment, some creepy horror, inspirational and some romance (and that's not all!).

More information about the events will be rolling out here, on our twitter and facebook pages...stay tuned!

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

There's A New Film Professor at Malone University.

This still was captured just last week on the set of new Film & Media Professor -- Sarah Hanssen's short film shoot -- HOW TO AVOID SEXUAL TEMPTATION.

If you're around Malone these days, you'll recognize junior Cale Short in the hazy background.  Cale has helped on several films this year and is putting finishing touches on one last submission. 

Sarah Hanssen joined our faculty this fall, and has been bringing much energy, excitement and talent to Malone.  She teaches our production sequence of courses, but also is committed to giving students a wide variety of opportunities to learn about the craft and profession of filmmaking. 

(For those of you who know him, yes, that's Josh Swain helping out with Cinematography on the set.)

Sarah comes to Malone from Pratt Institute in New York, and you can read a little bit more about her here.  Sarah's work with students, equipment and colleagues will all contribute to the positive developments in this year's Open Frame Film Fest.