King of Kong, Murch, Fly Filmmaking Challenge

Today's batch of movies was a grabbag of interesting film!

It started with King of Kong, a tale of one local man's (Steve Wiebe) struggle to overthrow the reigning world champion of Donkey Kong -- the classic video game we all know and love. The scores themselves are kept by a referee organization known as Twin Galaxies (you can view my personal scores as an example). First and foremost, this film had an incredible amount of shooting luck. The director stated over 300 hours of footage was shot during the filming, so perhaps that's more good responsible planning than luck, but what was captured was certainly very noteworthy. The story is very well driven by this excellently thorough footage. It pushes along the drama surrounding the serious intensity that comes from long hours of classic arcade gaming, and delves into those people who fully devote themselves to it. It's definitely a film with great highs and sad, sad lows. There's the champ to root for, the challenge that lays ahead for him, the ever patient wife and family, the onlookers, and even a bad guy we can all loathe. It's all there in one entertaining package -- so much in fact that the director has stated that a narrative feature film will be produced based on King of Kong sometime in the future. The documentary itself will premiere in theaters in August.

The next film was also a documentary called Murch, which is about Walter Murch the famous film editor who has worked on a number of classics. Originally going in, I thought this was going to be a biographical piece about the man and how he became an editor. About 10 minutes into the movie it became clear that it was distinctly not this at all. The film's strong point is its teaching potential for budding filmmakers (such as myself). For the majority of the film, we see Murch in an interview discussing very eloquently the finer points of editing theory and not necessarily what he does but why he does it. It's a fascinating look into the choices editors are faced with and what goes into the decision process. In one segment, Murch discusses how it is important to push beyond what is familiar to you and the audience and challenge your decisions by moving things around to experiment with what may work. In another segment, Murch talks about the eye as the natural editor, blinking at key moments when our brain needs a cut to signify the end of something. He talks about why standing up editing makes him feel more involved in the process and in tune with the film, and how important it is not to use music to force a mood into a scene. These and other tidbits flow along naturally through his well worded explanations, which are backed up with footage from his movies as demonstration material as he discusses them. It's quite an information overload if you're not already familiar with some editing concepts, and there are some biographic moments which Murch talks about as far as his involvement in the film industry, but overall the bulk of the documentary (if it can be classified as that) is really about Murch's editing process. With that said, the film did have its share of flaws. The single headshot of Murch talking became almost like a classroom lecture with his films as overhead projections. This is great as a learning tool as mentioned above, but for a documentary it may disappoint quite a few simply because the ground it covers is different from what one might expect going in. The massive amounts of jump cuts made during Murch's talking segments, which were necessary to cut out a lot of what appeared to be him rambling frequently, sometimes came across as stilted and forced -- even one word or two was cut between two others while he was on screen, which seems a bit extreme but the sound editing was well enough so that it wasn't quite as jarring as it could have been. At times this was on purpose for effect, but at other times it wasn't clear what we may have been missing from what Murch said. Lastly, the title sort of makes me again think of it as a biography about him, but it is really an informational piece about his editing process. As an informational piece, it is definitely a must-see for anyone interested in editing.

The last feature of the day was The 2007 Fly Filmmaking Challenge, which is actually comprised of three 10 minute shorts that are produced by SIFF and filmed by three directors chosen by local organizations. The films were The Bridge by Lisa Hardmeyer, Rainbow by Dayna Hanson, and Numb by Matt Daniels. All three were pretty good, but my favorites in order were Numb, Rainbow and The Bridge. Daniels' fairy tale imagery using vaseline lens vignetting, moody lighting and set design, and animated backgrounds was amazing considering the limited time necessary to complete the challenge. Hanson's story was beautifully shot and somewhat quirky, starring my new up and coming favorite local actor Linas Phillips (from Walking to Werner). I'd seen a short by Hardmeyer at the Post Alley Film Festival and was impressed by it, but The Bridge just wasn't up my particular alley and I think a lot of it had to do with the base script which didn't seem to have much there. Thinking about the physical script on paper, it does seem technically like a good idea overall, but I don't know maybe it was the dialogue or just simply the pacing that wasn't quite right. Or maybe I just don't like the cliche of starting at the story end and working backwards anymore.

Audience Watch: Oh man. Okay in my last entry, I noted a new irk which was audience members pushing an agenda during director Q&A's. Today's big agenda-pusher was a woman in the audience who decided to really give it her all with the co-directors of Murch, laying into them so hard that one of the director's actually had to have her repeat exactly what her question was. This woman's gripe was about "why there was only one talking head" and why it was so boring to her, etc, etc. I will give her some credit in asking the simple question about why no one else was interviewed, that's a legitimate complaint, but to take the floor for a good minute with a steady stream of ranting about how bad the film was to the directors standing on stage to me is just being a total jerk. I mean the fact that these people actually got a feature film done is commendable on its own as far as I'm concerned. The other thing is that any time someone takes the floor with a rant, it's a red flag that the show is over, because anyone who knows how to participate in Q&A knows that there is a level of respect one has to maintain for both the directors and the rest of the audience by not making everybody have to listen to this one random schmoe for the duration of their insane rantings. Anyway, the whole thing was extremely irritating and I felt really bad for the co-directors who smartly decided to end the Q&A after this question was up.