Shooters, Mullighan recently presented a panel at the London Short Film Festival, entitled ‘Luck = Preparedness + Opportunity’. With him were the delightful filmmakers (and Shooters), Ben Slotover and Eva Weber. If you weren’t lucky enough to make it down to the Curzon for the event, no fear! Ben has kindly made his notes from the panel available to you all here. Ben, as it turns out, has actually made short instructional videos, very good tools for the newer indie…

Shooters, Excuse the cross-posting with the Festivals blog, but we didn’t wany any of you to miss out on this – Mullighan recently presented a panel at the London Short Film Festival, entitled ‘Luck = Preparedness + Opportunity’. With him were the delightful filmmakers (and Shooters), Ben Slotover and Eva Weber. If you weren’t lucky enough to make it down to the Curzon for the event, no fear! Ben has kindly made his notes from the panel available to you…

Please forgive my duplicate-blogging. I put this on the Festival Focus blog but I can’t resist adding it here too since Obama played such a large role in this year’s Sundance for me. The film was made by my wonderful condo mates Shooting People’s Jesse Epstein and Chicken & Egg Pictures’ Natalie Difford with music by Force Theory.

I love Helvetica and am really looking forward to seeing Hustwit’s latest film, Objectified, at SXSW in March. I can see long lines for this film too. I nearly didn’t get into the Helvetica screening at SXSW in 2007. The line went all the way through the convention hall because it was a joint Interactive/Film screening and everybody was going crazy over fonts. Look I have proof! Here’s the trailer for Objectified.

Make sure you have a look at the Sundance Film Festival channel on YouTube. I attended this Panic Button panel during the fest (featuring some heavy hitters in indie film distribution: James Schamus, Ted Hope, Mark Gill, Michael Barker, Marcus Hu, Peter Broderick and Jonathan Sehring) and highly recommend that you watch it, you’ll learn a lot about how distribution currently works and a little bit about what needs to change. Ted Hope has some good feedback on the panel…

Spout Blog have been keeping a running tally of all the Sundance 09 deals, with links for more info. Very handy!

This is the lovely Chelsea Hernandez. Chelsea is not a zombie but she was at Slamdance with the Zombie Girl crew (the film was directed by Justin Johnson, Aaron Marshall and Eric Mauck). Zombie Girl follows Emily Hagins as she makes her first horror movie. A familiar story perhaps except Emily is twelve. The film had sold out screenings and has been getting some rave reviews. It also won a Spirit of Slamdance Award -  “Awarded by the Class of…

I had the opportunity to sit down with Roberta Munroe, author of the new book How Not to Make a Short Film: Secrets from a Sundance Programmer, in the Filmmakers Lodge right after Obama’s Inauguration on Tuesday. We were both in good spirits and it was inspiring to talk to someone who is so passionate about short films. Roberta was a short film programmer at Sundance for five years. She has also been a member of many film juries, mentors…

The 15th Slamdance Film Festival wrapped up on Friday. Congratulations to everyone who had films screening in the fest. These are the award winners: Grand Jury Awards Grand Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature Winner:  “A Quiet Little Marriage,” directed by Mo Perkins Special Jury Mention for Best Performance: Larry Fessenden in “I Sell the Dead” Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature Winner: “Strongman,” directed by Zachary Levy Special Jury Mention: “Second Sight,” directed by Alison McAlpine Grand Jury…