I’ve noticed Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours theory popping up in all over the Shooting People bulletins in recent days as various filmmakers try and explain the creative process. Gladwell is a terribly beguiling figure. Odd enough to be trustworthy, mainstream enough to sell by the library load, his ideas all have that delicious lateral-thinking, counter-intuitive smack that often convinces you of their truth long before you really listen. “Most plane accidents happen when the pilot, not the co-pilot is in…

Risking the fact that I sound like an eight year-old boy squirming in his seat with embarrassment when the hero finally kisses the girl, can I ask – am I alone in wishing that there was less sex on tv? Oddly I wish I meant that the way it sounds. I always revel in having an unfashionable opinion and I’d love to find some bizarre moral high ground in me from which I could condemn the delightful tide of seething…

I’m really excited to see Brett Gaylor’s Girl Talk documentary, RiP: A Remix Manifesto, which recently won the audience award at IDFA. The more I read and learn about Creative Commons, debates around fair use and the amazing work of people like Lawrence Lessig and Cory Doctorow, the more I realize what a vital debate this is to be having at this time. The ability to re-use and re-mix has always been part of our creativity. With innovations in technology…

The list of short films screening at Sundance 09 is below but I wanted to give a special shout out to all the Shooters on the list: Filippo Conz and Jon Haller (Concerto), Khary Jones (HUG), Topaz Adizes (Trece Anos), Morgan Currie (Good: Internet Censorship), Annie P. Waldman (So the Wind Won’t Blow it All Away), Martina Amati (A’Mare), Chema Garcia Ibarra (The Attack of the Robots from Nebula-5), Urszula Pontikos (China’s Wild West), Finlay Pretsell (Ma Bar), Eva Weber…

Thanks so much to everyone who came out to celebrate the festive season with Shooting People and the Manhattan Edit Workshop last night. You can’t go wrong with beer, skee ball and cupcakes it seems. I was too distracted to take any pics but the intrepid Jesse Epstein was on the case (when she wasn’t playing Buckhunter!).

www.glasgowfilmfestival.org.uk Y Tu Mama Tambien Once upon a time Mexican cinema barely registered on the world’s radar even in the 1950s when the country was making around 150 features each year. Spanish exile Luis Bunuel made waves with his Mexican work, especially Los Olvidados (The Young And The Damned) (1950), Ensayo d un Crimen(The Criminal Life Of Archibaldo de la Cruz) (1955) and Nazarin (1958). Down the years, occasional films did break out and gain attention like Jaime Humberto Hermosillo’s…

So anyway, my brother and I have finished a script for a feature film. (Start the applause.) And we delivered within in minutes of our deadline. (Increase the applause) So after four years we finally have a working draft! (Applause starts to falter… how long?) Though of course we still want to do another draft… (Applause stops. Sorry? What? Four years and you want another draft…) Or at least that’s what goes in my head when I try to explain…

Action for Brazil’s Children Trust patron Fernando Meirelles together with writer/actor Don McKellar feature in a newly released Q&A session focused on the making of ‘Blindness’ – watch the web cast here. Meirelles also discusses his involvement with social film projects, notably Cinema Nosso, which is supported by ABC Trust, a UK-based charity. Cinema Nosso was set up by Meirelles in 2002. The project was directly born out of Meirelles’ renowned ‘City of God’. The film, famously shot on location…

The older I get the more I feel like I don’t understand the world. For example, Botox. I don’t understand why anyone would want to paralyze their facial muscles with a poison so that they can possibly look a little younger but mainly just look like they can’t move their face around properly. I saw this outside a spa in Tribeca: Oooh fun. Cupcakes, champagne and mild paralysis. Count me in! The fabulous Sarah Haskins has more on this: Don’t…

www.glasgowfilmfestival.org.uk You are probably not the first person to ask why Glasgow has chosen Audrey Hepburn as the subject of our 2009 retrospective. There is no special anniversary to celebrate although, had she lived, Audrey would have been 80 in May. There are no sparkling new digital prints of Audrey classics that are waiting to be re-issued although the Festival might just nudge a few distributors to look again at the availability of her work in this country. Co-director Allison…