Producers are different things to different people, making this question difficult to answer. There are no detailed job descriptions and no two producers handle their jobs in exactly the same way. Is it any wonder that  both audiences, and many 'insiders', are bewildered by the proliferation of producer credits in films? The producer credit has often…

  Music videos The End of the World  REM's The End of the World As We Know It sung by George W Bush {youtube}V3CmXGKXOmk{youtube} Familjen - Det snurrar i min skalle Swedish Grammy nominated mashup of archive evangelists to Familjen's music. {youtube}QfU-4Y4_akY{/youtube}  Mashups The Vadar Sessions Before Star Wars, James Earl Jones starred…

Dead pan and wry are often traits associated with the national character of Edinburgh International Film Festival’s own natives, the Scots. So it’s intriguing to witness Argentinian and Greek directors – Ana Katz and Filippos Tsitos respectively - tackling family drama or existential inevitability in a dry-as-a-bone manner. Whether Argentinians or Greeks are noted for irony is moot, but consideri…

Power, Corruption and Laughs. This was Danish director/protagonist Mads Brugger’s route through the failed state chaos that reigns in the Central African Republic in his documentary satire The Ambassador, premiering in the UK at Edinburgh International Film Festival this week. Tackling deadly serious subjects that involve diplomatic immunity, old colonial interference and blood diamonds dredges…

We were chatting the other night about how the Death Star, for all its evil genius as a total killing machine, was really badly designed. I mean from a defensive point of view – a huge open port, with no gun turrets inside, leading to a big self destruct button. And Darth, despite all his Jedi training, is a pretty lousy pursuer of Luke. So we wondered if, at the end of Episode 3…

Legendary film-maker Ingmar Bergman has died at the age of 89. Cissi Elwin, CEO of the Swedish Film Institute, comments on Ingmar Bergman’s passing. "Probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera" Woody Allen "This is a day of sorrow in the world of film. One of the world’s most prominent f…

Some very important occasions in your life only comes ones and that's all. Such happening like your wedding, high school graduation party, a trip to a far country or an abnormal happening that you happen to witness are things you will never love to forget. One important thing that is of great important to help you record such occasions is a camera. Now, with a camera in hand, the next thing that…

Photographer and writer Julian Richards wanted to make a documentary film and had a rare opportunity to study and film Tuareg nomads of  Mali in Saharan Africa. He readliy agreed to share some of his experience with us. With The Nomads is an intimate, unromantic portrait of the Tuareg herders of the Sahara Desert and asks: Can they survive the 21st Century?  Below you will…

Forget Buddhism, Kabbala, and Scientology - there's only one religion that the Hollywood A-list want to be seen to be worshiping these days - Knowledgology. It began five years ago when the Reverend Doctor-Professor Solomon Profundis set up The Knowledge Hub, a spiritual retreat where burned out celebrities could recharge their batteries and at the same time broaden their religious horizons. Her…

There's not been a new post here in over four years, so maybe Netribution's 21st birthday today is a good time to update on a little expirment with "Web Monetization" (their zee, not ours). Web Monetization is a way to donate to the sites you visit without needing to have a separate subscription for them or even having to hit a donate button. After signing up with a provider (at the moment there…

The beaches of Goa are a bit like the United Nations, so many pepople from around the world, so many ambassadors of peace. They mostly seem lovely wise souls who will probably one day run companies and countries. Meanwhile in the US a very real battle continues, the ultimate in a way. And it is a battle which - if the Clintons push it too hard, could perhaps split the Democratic party…

well....its quite a mad story.... it all started when I was planning to make a short film -'eating out' - in August 2003... managed to get my actors, crew, location, camera, lights etc all via favours but still needed £200 or so to feed everyone and get us all through the 2 day shoot.... which was a problem until a friend called me saying she had a new job as cre…

If the 80's were epitomised by the Action film and the 90's were the domain of the more thoughtful independent film, then the early 21st century could easily come to be defined by the dominance of the comic strip adaptation. Ever since 'X-Men' and 'Spider-Man' hit the cinemas, Hollywood has been desperately trying to find the Next Big Thing. Even multi-award winning directors like Sam Mendes and…

Have a slightly madver 2008

When I was very young I was never as excited by films as I was by going to the theatre - it wasn't until my teens that I started geeking out on films.  The only only exception to that is Buster Keaton, I watched anything and everything by that man. The fact that he directed and wrote and stared in his films was one thing. But that he did his own stunts -  that made him a God…

'Stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you' Ray Bradbury   Dear Tom, It has been a while. I forget whose turn it is, but for sake of ease I shall both ask and answer my own question - a simple one. Where am I? It is a device, more than a question, to uncork my tongue as I sit here, in Paris's Gare De Lyon. Life shakes its stuff around me, and I shudder inside with the wearines…

Do you know those moments where everything seems larger than life? Where the taste of baked beans rivals haute cuisine? Where the hazy sunlight and slow summer pace make you feel so much lighter you could have lost a stone in weight. It's as if the great post production supervisor in the sky has decided to apply a luminosity filter, upped the brightness and contrast, balanced the audio…

Aimed at first time visitors, Shizana Arshad and Laura Horowitz at 6 Degrees Film have put together a Cannes Guide containing information on the festival itself, how to submit your film and obtain accreditation along with useful numbers and info... What do you need to know about attending the Cannes Film Festival? What should you expect? Who gets accreditation? Find out the answers to…

Added a story about Bad lad film after my first successful attemopt to upload and somehow managed to lose it in the system. Tried uploading a false story and it made the front page. It seems that the truth, in this case, will simply not out. Andy was looking over my shoulder and asked whereabouts he would upload his Carnals? Do we have somewhere they can be put as yet?

From Glasgow-based Phase IV, behind the long gestating Simulation feature, comes an interview with Mark Gorzynski, Silhouette Technician behind Eon Production's Quantum of Solace, who speaks about his work, his family and silhouilmaking. [video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO3hg_tEVgk 600x400]

“The reality is a single stream only amounts to 0.003p, which means I would need millions of streams to earn at least the minimum wage” Ayanna Witter-Johnson, singer-songwriter Last weekend The Guardian published some great insights from 25 figures across the music world around the state of subscription-streaming, as Spotify passes 155 million Premium subscribers and ahead of a uk.gov report…

“Our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of "hits" (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers.&rd…