ufil.ms

UFIL.MS
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On July 10th 2010 we launched the world’s newest URL shortener ufil.ms.

Unknown Films may be a small company, but we’re full of big ideas. More important than just big ideas are big actions that create innovation.

With the creation of ufil.ms, and other new features to come in the near future, we hope to do just that for our industry. We intend to raise the bar of what people expect from a videographer, in person, and online.

So why have we decided to join the ranks of almost 300 other URL shorteners? Simple; tracking, bookmarking, and marketing. These three things will help change our ability to know where our content is going through out the web. Knowing that information ultimately helps us serve you better.

Every time that we save a dollar that same dollar can be reinvested in the company instead of wasted on advertising and marketing in places that our customers don’t look. When the company makes more money, we then have the ability to do things like upgrade equipment, create new features on our website, and even simply having more time to focus on creativity and customer service. All these things directly effect you, our customer. I’m not afraid to say that our little company wants more money, it’s what a company does with that money that reveals its true integrity and overall quality.

Just for fun we decided to open ufil.ms to the public so that anyone can use it. Maybe it will become popular in the film industry and be used to share links to movies and other film related material, who knows? We’re very interested to see how it gets used and look forward to watching ufil.ms short links spread across the globe. We’re open to suggestions too, so if you have a new feature idea for ufil.ms just click the feature request.

So what are you waiting for? Go shorten a link using ufil.ms

Requested by Desdinova the Super Villian of the Ozarks on our ToDo List

London Tribune – “The only really satisfactory way to dispose of ‘Peeping Tom’ would be to shovel it up and flush it swiftly down the sewer, even then the stench would remain.”

Premiere – ”One of the Top 25 Most Dangerous Films”

Peeping Tom is a curious film. Although it was years ahead of it’s time it effectively destroyed the career of it’s director Michael Powell. I guess mixing voyeurism, murder, and sexuality has the ability to do that pretty quick when an audience misses the point.

Let me give you a quick synopsis of Peeping Tom before I go over a few of the notes I took while watching the film and some interesting facts I found out as well.

Mark, a possibly, in fact almost assuredly, disturbed man, likes to kill pretty girls. Can you blame him? Surely every one has wished ill on some pretty girl in their lifetime at least once for some reason or another. Being pretty isn’t easy I’m sure. Being able to get whatever you want with a smile and a flip of your hair, having people want to wait on you hand and foot, even down to getting extra cream cheese on your bagel for no ‘apparent’ reason (yes, that happens to Megan all the time). Must be rough. Anyway…

Mark though, kills in a slightly different way with a little more personality and finesse if you will. He likes to film the girls as he kills them, and not only that, he uses his actual camera equipment to do them in while filming with the same camera! Mark falls for one of those pretty girls and struggles with how not to kill her. He’s also looking for a explanation of why he is the way he is. Why does he like to watch?

I believe what this film really is about is the expression of filmmaking being almost a security blanket to a filmmaker. From my point of view I related in some ways, always wanting to capture every little thing on film, the good and the bad. It’s a deep and real passion. The ability capture and re-watch the events on screen over and over again is exciting to me and almost necessary to some sort of basic function. It’s hard to explain. In fact, the protagonist Mark says, “I can’t describe it, only photograph it.” I knew exactly what the filmmaker meant, wanting to photograph everything, even to the bitter end.

Film Still Frame

MY NOTES:
-I always find it fascinating that once you watch a lot of movies you can start to tell what country each one was made in or at least the country of origin the filmmaker is from. In this case the film is very British in essence.

-The film is about a misunderstood voyeurism. Isn’t people watching other people what the movies are all about?

-Interesting to see all the old cameras, editing and lab equipment.

-Mark is told that “…filming this much can’t be healthy…” I’ve been told that.

-What other movie can boast that immediately after the opening sequence it’s gets away with playing the same footage completely over again during the opening credits.

-The Eastman Colour came out very well!

-Many old and some modern, especially ultra low budget films don’t appear to have the ability to transition between ‘cuts’ or ‘clips’ properly without the use of crossfades or other pre-made transitions . I call the ability to do this correctly “Natural Transitioning”. Natural Transitioning means that each clip has been properly cut at just the right frame so that it ‘connects’ with the next clip in line and is an appropriate match to follow the previous clip. Peeping Tom, I feel, does this very well.

INTERESTING FACTS:
-Peeping Tom was so hated by audiences and critics it was pulled from all British theaters the same year it was released. Two years later, in May of 1962, it was released in the U.S. as a severely cut up version. It had a quick death of it’s own.

-The film has only survived and kept it’s popularity because Martin Scorsese revived it in 1979 at the New York Film Festival.

-The director, Michael Powell, has one of the longest autobiographies for a famous filmmaker. With a total of 1,317 pages it far beats the average of about 325 for other directors.

22JUN10 SPECIAL EVENT DETAILS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST

Injustices to the people of Ecuador and attempts to steal from the filmmakers by the oil company Texaco/Chevron.

This week I decided to watch a documentary film entitled CRUDE. I felt compelled to watch it after what I heard is currently happening to the filmmakers in regards to the raw footage. I explain below.

Crude, a Sundance Official Selection, covers the now over 17 year old legal battle between the people of Ecuador and the oil company Texaco, now Chevron. With creating over 30 times more damage to the environment than that of the Exxon Valdez in 1989, the people of Ecuador are standing up against the human rights violations committed by Texaco/Chevron. This film shows unfortunate footage of the Cofán indigenous people, among many other communities, enduring the struggles of life living in a contaminated rain forest the size of Rhode Island. Cancer has become prevalent along with many other life threatening ailments, largely effecting the younger population. The water that the Ecuadorians bathe in and the wells that they drink from have become dangerous and toxic to their health. Texaco/Chevron have used their power of money and wasting time to delay any legal actions against themselves. One point I thought to be humorous during the film was that Texaco/Chevron fought hard to get the trial held in Ecuador rather than the United States, where the original charges were filed. Hoping that the justice system of Ecuador could be corrupted, they realized that even the judges of Ecuador were not in their favor. It is expected that this legal battle will continue for another possible ten years.

Damage to the Ecuadorian Rain Forests by Texaco

That legal battle brings me to the reason that I watched this film in the first place. As Crude’s website states “Chevron recently served a subpoena on the makers of the feature documentary CRUDE in order to obtain nearly 600 hours of raw footage accumulated during the making of the film. In May, a US District Court ruled for Chevron and ordered CRUDE’s director, Joe Berlinger, to produce the footage.” This greatly upsets me, and as a filmmaker I find the idea appalling. I usually don’t get this opinionated about my posts but taking raw footage like this is simply stealing. Filmmaking is an art form, no matter what the topic. Just as it would be wrong to take paint away from a painter it is also wrong to take raw footage away from a filmmaker. This seems like a gross attempt by Texaco/Chevron to place blame on the producers of Crude and distract from the real issue. No matter how the film was made or the opinion of the makers, it should not be judged as right or wrong by any court and it’s raw footage should not be used to anyone’s favor expect for the artwork it was intended for.

The makers of Crude are having a fundraiser to support the director, Joe Berlinger’s, legal defense in the matter on Tuesday (June 22nd ’10). I encourage everyone in the New York City area to attend the event. There will be a Q&A with director Joe Berlinger, Berlinger’s lead attorney Maura Wogan of Frankfurt Kurnit, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, WGA East President Michael Winship and others. The event information can be found on their website as well as below. If you can’t attend please take the time to educate yourself about the issue, the people of Ecuador, and to watch the film.

Special CRUDE Legal Defense Benefit Screening
BUY TICKETS http://bit.ly/9KPjAt
JUNE 22nd 2010
8:00 PM
@ IFC CENTER
323 Sixth Ave. @3rd St.
New York, NY 10014
212.924.7771

Here’s some pictures from the trip to check out too. Flickr

By Nathan Maulorico
With guest writer Jodene Shaer of Johannesburg, South Africa.

This film was watched by the request of @cope243 via our ToDo List.

After Peter Jackson gave Neill Blomkamp $30 Million to make whatever he wanted (Due to the failed production start of ‘Halo’) District 9 was created in Johannesburg, South Africa.

At first I had no idea what this film was about. I heard it was shot on the famed RED camera and had some really amazing CGI work. I still knew it was a sci-fi film though and that doesn’t always get me excited enough to watch right away. Aliens are cool and all but there are so many other films I want to see.

Let me mention a few things that make this Alien flick a little different. Although the comments I got on Facebook were very mixed about whether this film was any good or not, I think it’s one you’re going to have to figure out on your own if you like it. I actually did like the film, but I liked it more after it was over oddly. After I researched a little about it’s making of. I liked the back story and the films intentions of exploring South African life in a new way. The fact that the director is from Johannesburg was very interesting to me too. It added reality to it. When you’re given a pile of money a told to make whatever movie you want you don’t just throw it away on any old run of the mill story, you create something that has meaning to you, or in Blomkamp’s case you expand on the short film he made in 2006 called ‘Alive in Joburg’, which is where his inspiration came from.

District 9 is much less about Aliens coming to Earth for 20 years and much more about the culture of human rights in South Africa. Those of us that are Americans often times have a very different view of what human rights are and what we believe they should be. Not every culture believes the same things about what what is wrong and right. The culture of Johannesburg, South Africa is a prime example of that. District 9 is a representation of that previous culture during apartheid from 1948-1994. We get to see an interpretation of the harsh reality that it caused. We see how one man experiences a people, becomes one of them, and then has to deal with the cruelty of his own people in return.

So that we can read some insight from an actual South African living in Johannesburg I asked Jodene Shaer to write her views and feeling about the film. Below is what she had to say including links she sent to view photos of Joburg!

Jodene:
To anyone who was not born or living in South Africa, I’m sure that District 9 is nothing more than a si-fi movie which might have just gotten a lot of media attention.

For me, as a South African who grew up in Johannesburg and amidst the apartheid era, it was a mixture of pride and shame all bundled into an unexpectedly well acted and shot movie. I say this because South Africa is a far cry from being recognised for our film industry and when an actor or actress makes it big in Hollywood, we are beyond proud and a little surprised.

I only went to see District 9 because it was filmed right in the city in which I grew up and it had made it to number 1 in the Hollywood box office. And wow, besides the hovering space ship, that was Jo’burg, my home town. Yes, the ‘prawns’ were the black people who were shuffled back into their zoned off areas and had curfews. They were not allowed out of their ‘district’ after dark and when we listened to them talk, we did think they were alien. The movie is so real to the lives we lived in the apartheid era, that the shacks used to film the movie are truly there. The township is there and so are the dead carcases. Many of the guns are South African made and the cat food represents the things that we, as whites, did not think worthy of eating.

The slang that a foreigner watching the movie would not understand, as spoken by the ‘humans’ in the movie are words that I grew up and didn’t really digest until my eyes were opened by the powerful truth and history that lies behind the movie, District 9.

I am proudly South African through the shame and the glory and I will always hold one of my proudest moments as the talent, truth, creativity and recognition that is District 9.

Jodene’s website: http://jodene.co.za/

Jodene’s daily blog: http://jodene.co.za/projectme

Official website of Johannesburg, South Africa: http://www.joburg.org.za/content/view/394/144/

About Jodene Shaer:
Jodene is a life achievement facilitator and owner of Lifeology, encouraging courage, consciousness and a sense of humour.

Establishing herself as a South African blogger, she redefines the life coach and provides the tools to breaking manifestation myths as she freely answers questions about happiness, abundance, life change, relationship help and sex in order to empower you to be your own source of change.

Our New Homepage

What I am going to do now is actually quite revealing for us. I’m not only going to explain why we chose the final design we did and show you the many designs it took us to get where we finally ended up, but I’m also going to show you pictures of the very first unknownfilms.com design, created seven years ago, that was never launched. Check them out at the end of this post.

I think you’ll agree with me that as clients change a company needs to change too in order to meet their requirements. New trends are always popping up and it’s up to each company to be ahead of those trends to provide the best possible service to every customer. Innovative ways of thinking and doing things are constantly happening all around us. If we don’t become a part of that innovation and create our own new ways, some other company will.

DEFINING OUR NEW HOMEPAGE:

It’s important to us at Unknown Films to have a solid structure on our website that allows for each user to have a fun and easy way to navigate our services. As we were getting very frustrated with not be able to decide what we liked and what design truly was an example of what we stood for it was brought to our attention by Kyaw Tha Hla that our latest design was emulating a famous artist by the name of Piet Mondrian (1872-1944). As you know our logo is based on the concept of squares. Mondrian held symmetry in a very high regard. This symmetry was something we were struggling to accomplish with our designs. After spending some time with images of Mondrian’s paintings our final design was born. As an homage to Piet and what his art stood for we created a design that not only can be viewed as a revival of Neo-Plasticism but also a way for us to show our visitors that everything we do is connected and strong. Our new design adds a level of happiness when its viewed compared to our old one, and lets us still remain mysterious without being too dark. In fact this is the first time we have ever used color on our homepage. We believe this new design will be ahead of the trends we see in our market and let our users find out what we do and who we are faster than before. This is the hub where everyone will be able to find and stay connected with us no matter what city we’re in.

Stay tuned for some slight modifications to the inner pages of our website too.

DESIGNS IN ORDER FROM NEWEST TO OLDEST

Concept #4 14 Mondrian

Concept #3 | Original Artwork

Concept #3 Gray

Concept #3 Black

Concept #2

Concept #2.1

Concept #1

2003 Design Page 1

2003 Design Page 2

2003 Design Page 3

2003 Design Page 4

This post has been dual posted on wedding-videography.com

This film was watched by the request of @Kembree

Primer has been on our ToDo list sitting on the NetFlix shelf for a while now and last night Megan and I finally got around to watching it. It’s been a busy couple of weeks and we’ll tell you all about it in some later posts.

Right from the start Primer dives in with a lot of dialogue between four or five characters. Some fast talking back and forth quickly lets me know I have no idea what this group of tie wearing guys is talking about. Whatever it is it’s intriguing though! I’m able to pick up a few words here and there and place an actual meaning to their technical discussions. I actually wondered how much homework the writer did in order to use so many scientific words and references throughout the entire film.

I didn’t take long to discover they were inventing something, but who knows what it is?! Regardless of what IT is, this devise definitely doesn’t do what they expected. Leaving them with strains on their friendship, Aaron (Shane Carruth) and Abe (@davidsullivan9) must figure out how to handle the knowledge and power their new machine has created for them.

Megan and I talked more than normal throughout this film. There were so many questions that came up about what we would do if we found ourselves in the same situation while watching. Would we play the stock market? Maybe, no, we’d get caught, maybe not, what about the lottery?… Primer brought something extra to the table that you don’t normally get to see in other films in this area. Personal decision making without all the futuristic special effects and only a short amount of “time” can pass. I can’t imagine how confusing it would be to be Abe and Aaron trying to keep everything in their lives straight in their heads. I also think writing a story like like this would not be an easy task at all!

The grainy picture and mood association color effects gave Primer an obvious independent feel. The production of this film was done well though. It proves once again that a limited budget does not limit creativity or the ability to produce a multi award winning film. You don’t need to be dazzled with special effects to have a good plot!

I look forward to future films by this team of filmmakers. I wouldn’t even mind a sequel!
-Nathan

BACKSTORY: SATO48 is an annual film challenge in which teams compete to make a film from start to finish in only 48 hours. Each film must be based on the components of the “inspiration package” given at the start of the contest.

For this week’s Monday Movie Review I thought it would be interesting to “review’’ the film that Megan and I made this past weekend for the SATO48 film competition. I’ll give you a little insight about what the film is about and what we went through during the making of it so if you choose to watch the film this weekend, at The Moxie Cinema, you’ll have the inside scoop.

If you’ve read this far you may have gathered that the title of our film is called Clink. It’s named after the wonderful people that this documentary type film is about, Don & Betty Clinkenbeard. The Clinkenbeards have been together for over 60 years now, so the stories they have to tell about themselves and the Springfield, MO area are fascinating to listen to. They’re also known for being the parents of Jeff Clinkenbeard, one of the organizers that has put SATO48 together since it began, five years ago.

Clink explores the surface of how the loving relationship between Don and Betty came to be, through a few simple questions that I ask them during an interview. They reveal to us some lesser known information about themselves, as well as humor us with their sarcasm. Their honesty is apparent when watching, in fact, it wasn’t until shooting was almost complete that Betty remembered that the film was going to be shown to the public! So much of this film was made especially for Don and Betty that some things, such as the closing distinctive sound of a toy dog, are only intended for them to understand the meaning. Feel free to ask me questions though.

Another hidden feature of Clink is that Unknown Films had the pleasure and opportunity to work with a few extremely talented piano musicians! Taylor Baldwin (age 25), Colin Turnbull (age 18), Elvis Fritz (age 8), and Mia Frerking (age 7). With their help and creativity we were able to create the underlying classical sounds you hear through the entirety of the movie. A special thanks to the musical talent!

From a production point of view this was a challenging film for us in some ways. I decided to work on some effects I wasn’t very familiar with. One being the opening credits which consisted of Nodes connecting each portion of text as they move around the screen. It took me many hours to get the text the way I wanted it to move and interact. I also worked with Tilt Shifting during the “memory sequences”, an effect that miniaturizes objects within a framed shot. It took so many hours for the effects and 60‘s color filters to render into the completed film that I had to sleep in my office, waking up every 30 minutes for 5 hours to make sure nothing went wrong during the final process.

With such a short amount of time to produce a movie and only five minutes to tell a story on screen we were only able to scratch the surface of Don & Betty’s life together. With so much extra footage and longer portions of the stories they tell I wanted to include it all but I knew we couldn’t, due to time. With that said we plan to release a short vignette online that dives deeper into the story and includes everything we got to hear but couldn’t put in the film. We’ll let you know as soon as this Special Feature titled It “Don”ed on Betty is posted.

Thank you to everyone who supported us and followed us during the making of Clink!

Join us at The Moxie Cinema April 24th & 25th to watch Clink
SHOWTIMES FOR CLINK:
SATURDAY APRIL 24TH 2010: 2:30pm & 6:00pm
SUNDAY APRIL 25TH 2010: 2:00pm