It’s not often I experience the films we feature in their full cinematic glory, and even rarer that I also get face to face time with the directors, but of the many films we’ve covered on the show Marcy Garriott’s feature documentary Inside the Circle - which opens a window into B-Boy culture, friendship and the challenges of growing up and finding your place in the world - definitely warranted the big screen experience. Marcy took some time out from promotion duties to discuss her approach to filmmaking.

Inside the Circle Materials
Notes for Casual Documentary Filmmaking Workshops

Showlinks
Inside the Circle
Inside the Circle MySpace
Still in Motion Interview
Sony HVR-Z1U
B-Boy City
Sony DSR PD-150
Sony DSR-PD170
SXSW
Children in Jail

• Inside the Circle - Marcy Garriott
• INSIDE THE CIRCLE Breakin’ Convention Screening
• DN EP 083: Escape From Luanda - Phil Grabsky
• DN EP 071: Good Copy Bad Copy - Andreas Johnsen, Ralf Christensen & Henrik Moltke
• DN EP 070: Routes - Alex Reuben

Inside the Circle (2007)
Capturing the raw power of a grassroots hip-hop movement, the award-winning documentary Inside the Circle tells the stories of strikingly talented b-boys Josh and Omar, former best friends who become rivals when they join competing dance crews. Immersed in the b-boy culture of defiant creativity, Omar rises to international renown, while Josh tangles with the law. Both of them struggle to keep dance at the center of their lives, and the “B-Boy City” competitive events thrown by visionary street dancer Romeo Navarro serve as emotional milestones in their journey to adulthood. Facing off in intense dance battles that mirror the larger events in their lives, Josh and Omar seek respect, meaning and identity “inside the circle.”

• DN EP 097: Inside the Circle - Marcy Garriott
• INSIDE THE CIRCLE Breakin’ Convention Screening
• Routes - Alex Reuben
• Tokyo Cowboys - Daneeta Loretta Saft & Patrick Jackson
• The Super Noble Brothers - Mark Escribano

Have a read and watch.

• SotW: I Love Sarah Jane
• SotW: Daylight
• Short of the Week Piece
• Auto Pilot, Distortion, Ping Pong & Biker Mike - Mike Chan
• _grau - Robert Seidel

Luckily though, I overcame my inner sloth and caught Marcy Garriott’s INSIDE THE CIRCLE at the beginning of this month when it played at the Brixton Ritzy Cinema. Even better, after 102 minutes of the sickest moves, wrapped in a thoughtful documentary about friendship, ambition and finding your way, I got to meet Marcy (and B-boy Omar) who I can’t wait to get on the show for an interview very soon.

Yes I know there’s nothing worse than someone harping on about how great a screening was that you didn’t attend, but if you’re anywhere near London on Thursday 1st May, the Breakin’ Convention guys are screening INSIDE THE CIRCLE at Lilian Baylis Theatre (details below), so get over there and show your love!

INSIDE THE CIRCLE presented by Breakin’ Convention
Thursday 1 May, 19:45 pm
Lilian Baylis Theatre (Stage door entrance) at Sadler’s Wells
(Rosebery Avenue, Islington, London EC1R 4TN)
Tickets: £5

Follow the link for more information, grab the directions so you don’t get lost and check out the trailer.

• DN EP 097: Inside the Circle - Marcy Garriott
• Inside the Circle - Marcy Garriott
• DN LFF07: The English Surgeon - Geoffrey Smith
• DN EP 070: Routes - Alex Reuben
• Routes Hits a Cinema Near You

As part of my CINECITY ‘07 Film Festival coverage I caught up with DJ and director Alex Reuben at South East Dance’s Dance For Camera launch to discuss his dance road movie Routes and the roll of dance as a major tool in documentary filmmaking.

Showlinks
Alex Reuben
Alex Reuben MySpace
CINECITY
South East Dance
Anthology of American Folk Music
Fats Domino
When the Levees Broke
Communities in Motion
Robert Gordon
Capture 4
Arts Council England

• Routes Hits a Cinema Near You
• Routes - Alex Reuben
• INSIDE THE CIRCLE Breakin’ Convention Screening
• DN Special: Joy Division - Grant Gee
• DN EP 097: Inside the Circle - Marcy Garriott

Routes (2007)
A dance road-movie inspired by Harry Smith’s compilation, Anthology of American Folk Music. Alex Reuben sets out on the road to document lesser-known forms of American culture and the extraordinary dancing Americans of the Deep South.

• Routes Hits a Cinema Near You
• Inside the Circle - Marcy Garriott
• DN EP 070: Routes - Alex Reuben
• Tokyo Cowboys - Daneeta Loretta Saft & Patrick Jackson
• The Super Noble Brothers - Mark Escribano

Rubén Obregón Casas, left a career in the US military to become a director and today joins me to discuss for his lyrical lovers parted tale, La Primavera.

La Primavera Materials
Stills

Showlinks
La Primavera MySpace
OFVM
Carling Reading & Leeds Festival
onedotzero
Jarhead
UCLA
Digital Intermediate
Telenovela
Fado Music

• Carling Weekend Reading & Leeds ‘07
• La Primavera - Rubén Obregón Casas
• DN EP 051: What We’ve Found Out About Stem Cells - Richard Fenwick
• DN Ep 034: Carlin - Brent Green
• DN Ep 033: Lee Meets the Psychics - Lee Kern

La Primavera (2006)
A lyrical telling of a brief encounter between a US Navy Sailor and a young woman at a South American port town, La Primavera delves into the fleeting moments of uncertainty and flux that test the bounds of emotional connection.

• The West Side - Ryan Bilsborrow-Koo & Zachary Lieberman
• The Shovel - Nick Childs
• The Leafcatcher - Leo Sedgley
• The Greatest Gift - Daniel Bloomberg
• Sun in the Night Time - Anne Wilkins

My guest today is Lana Schwarcz talking about the plethora of creative roles she fills and her alternate reality piece The Upper Hand, where humans and puppets come together to bet on cross-species striping contests.

The Upper Hand Materials
Stills

Showlinks
That Lana Girl MySpace
That Girl Entertainment
Marc Fennell’s Film Ed 101
Lana’s ABC Video Lives
Tropfest
The Portable Film Festival
Apple Final Cut Pro
Mike Reed & Partners Post Production
UNIMA 2008 Masterclass Series Survey
Australian Film Television & Radio School
UNIMA 2008

• The Upper Hand - Lana Schwarcz
• DN EP 086: Extraordinary Rendition - Jim Threapleton
• DN EP 080: Gardens By the Bay - Squint/Opera
• DN EP 079: Menomena: Evil Bee - Stefan Nadelman
• DN EP 071: Good Copy Bad Copy - Andreas Johnsen, Ralf Christensen & Henrik Moltke

The Upper Hand (2006)
When the ordinary no longer sustains its audience, the ultimate performer will do almost anything to get them back on side.

Mistress Marvel’s Burlesque Club and MC Randy invite puppets to mingle with live humans to see Lulu Fountain (pron. FounTAINE) vs Capability Brown in a competitive strip-off that is sure to blow things all out of proportion.

The giddy heights of theatrical fame will no doubt be achieved by one of these sexy ladies, but which one?

• Tyger - Guilherme Marcondes
• The Raftman’s Razor - Keith Bearden
• Moros Eros: On My Side - Jesse Ewles
• English Language (With English Subtitles) - Tim Plester
• DN EP 045: The Upper Hand - Lana Schwarcz

Our guest director today Nicolas d’Haussy, is a master at keeping an eye on the minutia of a project, even when working with no budget and a volunteer crew as he did on the AIDs information ad spot, It’s Beautiful.

It’s Beautiful Materials
Stills

Showlinks
Nicolas’ Site
Frenchkiss
Manganelli
Shynola
Air - The Virgin Suicides
Carol Goode
Supinfocom
Josephine Baker
Escape Pod
Samantha Henderson

• It’s Beatiful - Nicolas d’Haussy
• DN EP 037: Gobblynne - Katy Davis
• DN Ep 023 reposted: Virtuosi - Marcelo Garcia
• Waiting for the Guards & The Stuff of Life - Marc Hawker
• Time Piece - Kat Mansoor

It’s Beatiful (2006)
Part of a 10 film series to educate and combat against the spread of AIDS.

• DN Ep 027: It’s Beatiful - Nicolas d’Haussy
• Waiting for the Guards & The Stuff of Life - Marc Hawker
• Phenomenal Xmas Irn Bru - Robin Shaw
• KCRW Inner Level & Full Circle - David Vegezzi
• DN EP 093: Waiting for the Guards & The Stuff of Life - Marc Hawker

Frame of Mind (2004)
It’s the aftermath of a party and time to leave, but something, or someone, is holding this girl back!

• Auto Pilot, Distortion, Ping Pong & Biker Mike - Mike Chan
• _grau - Robert Seidel
• Virtuosi - Marcelo Garcia
• To Shoot a Rurf - Shane & Paula Sheils
• The 12 Inch Pianist - War-rag

Today is a show of firsts. Our guest Susie Glynn is the first solo woman director we’ve interviewed on the show to date and is here to discuss the first dance film to be featured on Directors Notes, her one minute piece Frame of Mind, which is the shortest director’s note we’ve featured, but you and I know it’s quality not quantity that counts!

Frame of Mind Materials
Stills

Showlinks
Dance South West
Joon Goh Interview
Cat’s Smack Promo
Capture
The Place
Dance On Camera Festival
Sadler’s Wells
Rotterdam International Film Festival
Constellation Change Film Festival
Chisenhale Dance Space

• This post is all alone.

Director Magali Charrier and choreographer Maria Lloyd worked together to create the story and choreography for experimental dance film Left or Right for Love. The inspiration was a meeting of two ideas: Charrier wanted to explore the possible responses of individuals when surrounded by white and Lloyd experiment with gravity while constructing a meeting between a motionless man and a weightless woman (played by Lloyd).

From these initial ideas came the narrative of a woman who upon slipping into a milk bath enters her inner space of whiteness. £8,000 cash and free editing at Brighton’s Lighthouse was awarded, with Sweet Childs Films assigned the role of producer.

In the piece once Lloyd accepts her inner self, she merges with her own image and a box containing a man falls from the sky. “It happens to be the man of her dreams and she gets so filled with love that she starts to float off the ground and flies around him. There is a quirky awkwardness I wanted to express in a meeting between two people. The man holds his hand out and she lands in the palm of his hands. They have a duet where she is wildly happy flying around and a second duet with more intimate movements of the heads meeting.”

As Lloyd had never previously performed as an aerial artist, she embarked on a grueling regime of sit-ups and swimming to build up muscles. Lloyd found that aside from the general discomfort of aerial work, hard landings provided the harshest pains, earning her a three week injury during the project. After disappointing results with a climbing harness, which had to be moved manually, line producer Hester Campbell managed to source a computerized harness that greatly improved the process. Post was completed using software tools Final Cut Pro, After Effects and Avid, editor Ant Hayes spending a week wiping wires from each frame.

Left or Right for Love won best experimental animation film at the Norwich International Animation Film festival, represented Britain at the Berlin Film Festival and is being distributed by Eroarts a German distribution company. Charrier’s and Lloyd’s next project is a romantic comedy fiction piece.

- Originally published in Showreel, Issue 7 (Spring 2005)

• Keepintime: Talking Drums and Whispering Vinyl - B+
• The Scent of Seth - Anita Shukla
• DN Ep 028: Stumble Then Rise on Some Awkward Morning - Kurtis Hough
• Talking with Angels - Yousaf Ali Khan
• Stripes - Sean Spencer