Author: |Posted: 16:07 on 09/12/08
Category: 3 Minute Wonder, FourDocs competition, films found on the web, new talent
Holly Ross is the director of A Anderton Presenting, which was one of the winners of the My Family and Other Animals theme that aired on Channel 4 earlier this year. I asked her about herself, and this is what she sent me. [Make sure you check out her v cute pop video I Like Birds But I Like Other Animals Too.]
I am a film maker from Lancaster, which is a little historical city in the north west of England. At the moment I work as a producer/director for ITV Border in Carlisle making regional programmes for them but what I enjoy most is thinking of ideas for short films that I can film in my spare time and then making them!
I really really love making documentaries. What I love about documentaries is finding passionate and interesting people with amazing stories and putting their story and perspective on life ‘down to tape’. There are a lot of people in the world who are worth recording and in my work I hope to open up the door to these people’s lives and let viewers stand on the door mat agog! For me, it’s all about finding great people with spectacular stories, or filming the mundane in a spectacular way. Someone once said I was like the ‘Diane Arbus’ of television. I went red at that cos I really really like Diane Arbus.
Author: |Posted: 12:29 on 07/10/08
Category: 3 Minute Wonder, FourDocs competition, festivals, films found on the web
One of my highlights at Britdoc was watching the music short docs that were commissioned for a special 3 Minute Wonder strand. Music tracks were offered up and filmmakers had to pitch the documentary the music was inspiring them to make.
The winners were some of my favourite auteur documentary filmmakers, such as James Lees (who won best short at Sundance this year for The Apology Line), Pinny Grylls (Peter and Ben) and Christopher Allen (of the Light Surgeons). He’s done some really exciting site specific film projects at art galleries music festivals.
Author: |Posted: 13:37 on 22/09/08
Category: 3 Minute Wonder, FourDocs competition
Hello – I’m just back from a holiday, that should have started with an Excel flight, except they went bust the day before I left. Cue 28 hours of delays and long airport bar bills, until a substitute flight actually took off. Most annoyingly they kept delaying the fight without revealing reasons – first 7 hours, then 5 more, then the next day etc. I understand it was a logistical nightmare on a grand scale, but it’s so much better when people are straight with you about the state of play, instead of fobbing you off.
So, I would like to personally say sorry sorry sorry for the fact that FourDocs has not been reviewing and posting your films for a quite a long while, and the fact that links from the old site are not working at the moment. read more
Author: |Posted: 15:18 on 29/08/08
Category: 3 Minute Wonder, Uncategorized
Remember the deadline is looming, so get those entries in! You can upload them to the www.mywinnipeg.co.uk site, in the your winnipeg film competition section.
Author: |Posted: 16:52 on 08/08/08
Category: 3 Minute Wonder
The new set of First Cuts started last Friday, with an investigation into what’s happened to Britney Spears and how society treat celebs, made by established producer and new director Bruce Fletcher.
I’m more excited about tonight’s installment though -Time Warp Wives.
I know people who adopt an era from the past closer to their heart than the present day, and style their lives and record collections accordingly. However, the line between their values and the perks of the modern world mesh somewhere between the comforts of digital technology and short haul holidays. Tonight’s film shows us fanatics of the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s who are entirely dedicated to the lifestyle, resources and attitudes of their chosen time.
More excitingly, the documentary is made by Sally Hewitt, who directed the 3 Minute Wonder series Little Worlds, one of the best to make use of the idea of 4 people’s stories with the same visual rock. Each episode is about a different dolls house owner, and as you hear them talk about what and who they see within, you’re transported towards into their imagined other world. Every character is confronting some issue through their play – an anorexics self image, an immigrants sense of upper class Britishness, a shoddily housed woman’s sense of communal life and a retired mans sense of worth. Collected within the miniature buildings are larger than life aspirations. Hopefully Time Warp Wives will similarly show how that what people do is an indicator of how they want the world to be.
Time Warp Wives, Channel 4 tonight, 7:30pm
Author: |Posted: 15:18 on 30/07/08
Category: 3 Minute Wonder
Our next 3 Minute Wonder theme is ‘My Home Town’. We’ve taken inspiration from Guy Maddin, who just made a docu-fantasia film My Winnipeg, to excellent reviews.
Author: |Posted: 11:54 on 28/07/08
Category: 3 Minute Wonder, festivals
BritDoc was it’s usual charming parade of projects and people enthusiastically exchanging on the lacquered lawns. There were some differences from last year – notably the new short and good pitches, and way the international docs programming had been handed over to directors of other major festivals, and the increase in attendees. For me the difference each year is the changing guise by which I actually attend BritDoc. Year 1 I was a red t-shirted volunteer, in 2007 a delegate, and this one I sat on a jury, for the short film competition. read more
Author: |Posted: 18:48 on 11/07/08
Category: 3 Minute Wonder, festivals, films found on the web
FourDocs crosses under and betwixt all the possible outposts for documentaries on this island and beyond. Indeed, searching out the right space for individual films to flourish is something we’re going to do a lot more of this year. We’re a great place to start and send short films because we connect up with lots of varied players who fund and exhibit in different ways.
Famously FourDocs has direct links with broadcast slots through our relationship with 3 Minute Wonder. 2008 will see us screening 15 films on Channel 4 at prime time and commissioner Kate Vogel will be writing on this blog regularly about what rocks her boat and works for television TX’s. FourDocs has fantastical relationships with the two biggest documentary festivals in the country – BritDoc and Sheffield Doc Fest. Ex-editor of FourDocs (and sorely missed) Charlie Phillips is now in charge of the Market Place at Sheffield Doc Fest, where he courts all the international funders. He’ll pass on his wealth of knowledge about life, and pitching and getting longer documentaries films funded too, here in the blog.
Our exec-producer Patrick Uden will still be be reviewing film as harshly and honestly and helpfully as before, here in the blog. And, his friends at the Grierson Trust have decided to award a brand new prestigious annual prize to the best observational FourDoc (more on that later). And, as the new editor of FourDocs I’ll be on the look out for films on the web and in the wider world, and will be blogging about what i find that inspires and films we want to stream.
