Be sure to use the online registration to claim your FREE seat at “Playing With Ideas.”

We have five speakers, including Scott Dugdale of WaveGroup Audio-creators of Guitar Hero, Dave Master of The ACME Network, helping to connect college and high school students with professional animators, and Donna Eyestone, a podcasting teacher and former Apple content creator.

The event is in the Shasta College Theater building, Reddig, Friday April 3rd from 8 am registration to 2:30 pm. Check it out.

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Today’s event was MC’d by Peggy O’Lay,  and she opened with a quote from one of the filmmakers:

“When a community provides art, it creates artists.”

This really captured the spirit of the event, and it spoke to the dedication and generosity of all the volunteers and event sponsors.

The lead-off film was “Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park” by Tristan Howard. This 30-minute documentary did an excellent job of describing and showing the ecology of this area on California’s northern coast. This film was shot between September of 2008 and January of 2009, and produced from more than 6 hours of footage.

I was impressed with the excellent cinematography and natural sound, particularly of the elk. It was obvious that it took a great deal of painstaking work to get this footage.  “Prairie Creek” showed us the spectacular males, which have razor-sharp antlers and can weigh up to 1, 100 pounds. These are not animals you want to annoy. Yet Howard was able to capture the natural activities. Impressive. The film also also covered the area’s bird and plant life equally well.

Howard is a filmmaker and a scientist, and his narration did justice to his striking images. This film is more than a visual treat, it is a substantial nature documentary. For those of you who didn’t catch this fine film, or would like to see it again, it is scheduled to air on our own PBS station on April 11, 2009 at 8 pm. You also can visit his website for a DVD of this and other films. It’s worth marking your calendar. A footnote for my students, you might want to look at his collection of documentary scripts to get an idea of how you write for a documentary. Read more…

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Dave Wright MC’d today’s screenings, and he noted that the film festival was 15 months in the making.

The opening included a clip of Kathleen Kennedy sending her greetings, congratulations, and regrets on not being able to attend. This was a nice touch, and served as a living example of how it is possible to start in a small town and really go somewhere.

The first film of the day was introduced by Dr. Lang Dayton, father of Todd Dayton, who was unable to attend.

Todd’s entry for the festival was “Matsutake,” his senior project for the UC Berkeley Graduate Program in Journalism. It was an impressive film, that took us through the entire process of harvesting and production of the world’s most expensive mushroom, Matsutake.

I was impressed with how the film went beyond just recounting facts to give us a feel for what it is like for those who, at each step of the way, work to bring this exotic food to Japanese consumers. The prices can range upwards of $600 a pound. The forests of Oregon are one of the few places with the specific, volcanic soil to support this fungus.  I was more than entertained by this film, and if I had tuned across a PBS or National Geographic channel, I would not have been surprised to find it there. It was of high quality. His production company’s website is www.falloutpictures.com.

Next up was Chase Jensen. Jensen’s story is that he left Redding for Los Angeles to work in the fashion industry, but was drawn in by film and landed at Azusa-Pacific His second entry for Sundial, “Revenge of the Mouse” was three-minute long  claymation with a dark sense of humor. Read more…

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I was at the opening festivities of the first Sundial Film Festival, and it was well worth the $30 for a three-day pass.

The opening film was the documentary, “Angle of Inspiration,” and it was fitting. I had seen this film before, on DVD, and sent it along as a Christmas gift to my dad. I need to trek over to Turtle Bay Gift Shop for another two or three….

“Pigeon Pilfer” was screened next, a clever and artfully executed stop-action short. Michael Stevenson (a former student of mine when he was at Shasta College) wowed us. He said, during his brief speech, that the film represented four solid months of work for the 1:30 run time.   But he packed a great deal of story into such a short format, and the humor was just terrific. He’s presently working on an animation project for a Brazilian firm, the result of contacts that came out of his college in San Francisco. I look to see great things from Michael. Check him at at www.mstevenson.net.

“The Legend of Buffalo Calf Girl,” a film by Rodger Slagle, offered breathtaking visuals and some tender, magical moments. I am fortunate enough to have an autographed program sitting in front of me, courtesy one of the festival’s youngest stars, Amande Slagel, aka Buffalo Calf Girl. What a delight. The great thing about a film festival such as this, too, is that you are able to see the producers, directors, writers, actors and cinematographers radiating joy as they share their triumph with people who care about film.  See Rodger Slagle’s web page at www.lassenwriter.com. Read more…

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