Fishing with John

This week on the New Yorker is a piece on John Lurie, the young man from Jim Jarmusch first films. It reminded me on Fishing with John, a series he made not too long ago. I think it's a terrific piece of art, I watched it online and I think this one deserves a special night at the cinema, or a special week. I'd love to watch it on a huge screen in the dark. It's magical, and it's a rare case in which celebs (can Lurie be called a celeb? it's so degrading) - celebs and art can actually create something meaningful and strong. Beautiful.

A great comedy script (and the review)

One of the best scriptwriters blogs out there is definitely ScriptShadow. I'm a dedicated reader of this blog, and I often bother reading the scripts he recommends. I don't have time to read the bad scripts, but I know I should: reading a script that doesn't work is one of the best learning methods there is.

Script Shadow latest post is about The Escort, an excellent comedy script that got one of the best reviews I've read on the site. Of course this script is available on the site, so read the review, then read the script (or the other way around, not sure what's better actually).

Out there on other scriptwriting blogs...

Let's have it.

1. John August, the scriptwriter and the blogger, gives a good advice for scriptwriters that are stuck with characters they don't know too well:

   If you’re having a hard time finding a character’s voice, get him talking about something unrelated to the scene at hand.

2. ScriptShadow, the blog and the shadow, writes a book review about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Worth reading, after reading the book or the script of course, because the review is full of spoilers.
3. Mean and massive, the mean and the massive, wrote a good short film review, on a short I've recently watched on Vimeo. It's called Cream/Egg, and on the MeanMassive blog you could find the entire movie as well.
   

What is the best school for film studies?

It's not a tricky question, but it is a question with many different answers. To answer this I must now first where do you want to study film. The NYU for example is a private university, hence expensive one, but it run its film programs in two locations: New York and Singapore.

bet lets step out of the box for a second. The first question in that case must be: Why do you want to take film studies in the first place?

Because if you say you do that in the hope to work in the film industry afterward, plus you insist you are not a masochist, then I must say that probably a film school is not your best place to start. Better go to film studios, stoke on tv producers, or sleep with some geeky-but-cool people you meet in the local bar. It will save you lots of money and four years of sweat.

On the other case, if you simply want to educate yourself, now that's fantastic. You don't need to pay a dime. Just go to this great free film studies blog, and expand your brain with all the information this great blog has. It's a blog for the theory of cinema, of course, not the craft itself. So if you still miss this boom in your arm, go ahea and try the NYU, USC, UCLA, or any other place that loves to take your money and get you exhausted at the end of the day.

In either way, good luck!

YouTube's maximum video length

So last week (or was it this week? I'm losing track of time) YouTube changed their maximal length of uploaded videos from 11 minutes to 15 minutes. This is really an improvement for all the young filmmakers who wish to publish their short films. Usually 15 minutes is the maximal length for shorts in festivals etc., so most filmmakers follow that rule.

I'm not sure what was the reason YouTube decided on 11 minutes to begin with, but I'm satisfied enough with the news to ask too many questions.