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CURRENT COMPETITION: Writing & Pitch Competition DEADLINE Feb. 24 |
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dox.populi (NexTV's Documentary Blog): WHY WE TAKE RISKS
Unscripted film and TV has never been as popular as it is today. Recent technological advances have made it possible for virtually anyone to create content. In this blog we will discuss various methods for ensuring that your project is of the highest possible quality and how modern attitudes and innovations in filmmaking are revolutionizing the documentary genre.
Click HERE to see the full archive.
John David Flores
WHY WE TAKE RISKS
(outtake from "a final peace" featuring my cousin Jason. This is unedited so apologies for the sound and lighting)
It was late one night and I was enjoying some cocktails, when my phone rang. I rarely get calls that late unless they are emergencies and the phone number was unknown to me, so I was a little apprehensive as I answered it.
“Hello?”
“Hello cousin.”
“Jason?”
“Yeah it’s me.”
It was my cousin Jason, you will recognize him as the only bearded man interviewed in the film. He sounded subdued, but not panicked.
“How are you doin Jay? What’s goin on?”
“I’m ready to tell you my story now.”
“What?”
“I’m ready to tell you what happened to me with Tommy.”
Month’s before, I had called Jason’s mother, Candace, to ask if she would allow me to interview her for the film. She is Tom’s second oldest stepsister and knew him better than anyone else in the family. It was then that I learned about an incident involving Tom and two of her children.
Up to that point I had believed that I was the only one that had been molested by Tommy. To hear, now, that my younger cousin, someone that I considered (and still consider) to be more like a little brother, may have also been victimized, literally took my breath away.
If you are going to do a doc about your family, be prepared to learn things that you may never have wanted to know; and if your subject is something as painful as incest, be prepared for some of the things you learn to hurt. I can’t explain it any better than that.
My aunt would not reveal the details of what had happened but simply said that, in deference to her children, she could not participate without their approval. This situation highlights how often we have to make choices, important choices, with little to no information on which to base them. The only things I knew about what had happened were that it involved my 7 and 13 year-old cousins, and that it was most likely sexual in nature. Looking back, it was like I was standing on a precipice with no idea of what was down below.
As visual journalists we are expected to take risks, sometimes without a clear idea of what is at stake. Some of the choices we make fall flat on their collective ass and all we get in return is a bruised ego and a hard lesson learned. But every once in awhile the risks we take lead us to truth. It is for these moments that we should always be willing to jump.
After weeks of cajoling, my cousin finally agreed to discuss the project with me at his convenience. It would be another several weeks before I would receive the call described earlier. Jason not only agreed to share his incredible and heart-wrenching experience with me, but to do so on camera, if that is what I preferred.
This was a pivotal moment for the project because it marked a significant departure from my original theme. Rather than a memorial to Tom, the film’s focus would be more comprehensive, and dare I say ‘realistic’. This change in ‘purpose’ would ultimately lead to the most amazing find of the whole production: Tommy’s best friend in the Navy.
Next week we will continue our journey as we turn our attention to Tom’s experiences in the Navy, and my discovery of the “only good friend he had”. Have a great week everybody.
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SOCIAL IMPACT AWARD Celebrates art, social change and you.
the 2012 Writing & Pitch Competition will feature NexTV's first Social Impact Award, sponsored by Herman Miller.
We will fly the winner of this award, along with the Grand Prize Winner, out to Hollywood, where we will host an incredible evening at the historical EAMES HOUSE; a night of food, film and celebration of your work...and of the relationship between art and social change.
We've brought together a panel from the UN, Amnesty International, Current TV and a load of Agents, producers and execs.
Currently, you can submit for the Social Impact Award with our partner-company, withoutabox.com
(SAME COMPETITION, DIFFERENT SUBMISSION FORM ONLY)
SUBMISSIONS CAN VARY FROM COMPLETED DOCS, WEB SERIES, SHORTS, FEATURES OR WRITTEN PITCHES, SCREENPLAYS, TV PILOTS...ANY GENRE!
Last year's Writing Winner, Brian Durkin, wrote a pilot about a mine explosion. It's a narrative series (not a doc), but would work well in this category.
Here are some previous submissions that would fit nicely as well into this category:
1. WOMAN REBELS by Kiran Deol (Winner of NexTV's Unscripted Category...it has been BOUGHT BY HBO)!
2. BORN TO BE OUR CHILDREN by Alex King (2011, Semi-Finalist)
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Building a Successful Animated TV Series - Noella Borie speaks: TEASERS
TEASERS
Sorry I didn’t post anything for a while, but I’ve been busy ANIMATING! To prove it, here are not one but two tiny teasers; just a peek at the opening credit I’m working on, so you know I haven't gone away. I’ve been reworking the scripts and started thinking about a book/graphic novel adaptation for Neil… More soon! Meanwhile enjoy the teasers! (and watch the short film below!)
Here is the full short film that won NexTV's animation competition:
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ALL LIT UP (NexTV's Literature blog) - Lost Weekend 6-pack with Alan Heathcock
NexTV's Literature Blog written by James Goertel.
Click HERE for the full 'ALL LIT UP' archive....and check out James' latest book, CARRY EACH HIS BURDEN
ALL 'LIT' UP LOST WEEKEND 6-PACK with ALAN HEATHCOCK (author of VOLT)
ALL 'LIT' UP's inaugural edition of the LOST WEEKEND 6-PACK featured two Chicagoland authors, Ben Tanzer and Patricia Ann McNair, last week, so it is fitting the follow-up happens to feature Alan Heathcock, a Chicago native and the author of VOLT, last year's stunning and heavily lauded story collection published by Graywolf Press and a staple of year-end top-ten lists. I am a big fan of this breakout author and have had the privilege to correspond with him during his meteoric rise and the kind of whirlwind year of opportunities and accolades every writer dreams of. Tapping Alan for the 6-PACK was a dream of mine because I know how passionate he is about books and movies and because I was interested to see how the author of the haunting and brutal story The Staying Freight might round out the 6-pack beverage-wise. Alan ended up putting together a sixer I wouldn't mind partaking of myself this weekend. Enjoy - J. Goertel
ALAN HEATHCOCK
"We'll call it a weekend, but I'm a consumer with strong legs and have been known to kill a "weekend six pack" on a weekday. The movies would be something thoughtful and beautiful and poetic, like Malick's Tree of Life or Bergman's Winter Light, and then something thoughtful and exciting, something that'll get my hackles raised a bit, like Drive, There Will be Blood, something by Scorsese, or any movie where Hitchcock didn't try to be funny. The books would be something by Cormac McCarthy (for me, there's Cormac...and then all the rest), The Road, Blood Meridian, and Child of God being in regular rotation, and then maybe some poetry--just read It Is Daylight by Arda Collins, which totally blew me away. For drinks, I'd feed my brain cells with some sort of veggie/fruit/grass smoothie, and then I'd kill a few brain cells with a six pack of Miller High Life (I'm a simple man--don't hate me). In fact, this post has inspired me--anyone up for beer and Vertigo?"
Alan Heathcock’s fiction has been published in many of America’s top magazines and journals, including Zoetrope: All-Story, Kenyon Review,VQR, Five Chapters, Storyville, and The Harvard Review. His stories have won the National Magazine Award in fiction, and have been selected for inclusion in The Best American Mystery Stories anthology. VOLT, a collection of stories published by Graywolf Press, was a “Best Book 2011″ selection from numerous newspapers and magazines, including GQ, Publishers Weekly, Salon, the Chicago Tribune, and Cleveland Plain Dealer, was named as a New York Times Editors’ Choice, selected as a Barnes and Noble Best Book of the Month, as well as for inclusion in the Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers series. Heathcock is a finalist for the Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and is currently a Literature Fellow for the state of Idaho. A Native of Chicago, he teaches fiction writing at Boise State University. For more information, please feel free to visit alanheathcock.com.
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NexTV 'Pitch Winner' presents his TV Pilot!
(by Randy Becker): Each year we have a Writing & Pitch Competition, where we look for the best screenplays, tv pilots, books, plays and PITCHABLE IDEAS. The 2012 competition has just begun and the Industry Involvement is incredible once again!
Frankly, the idea for NexTV came to me in the shower after a hugely uncomfortable break-up with my previous business partner. It's exhilarating to see the idea turned into a business and our mission yielding results.
Rob Hill, an extraordinary filmmaker from North Carolina, is a previous winner that we talk about alot; a model for what we have set up here at NexTV. He had an idea for a TV series that was not going anywhere until he submitted it to the NexTV Writing & Pitch Competition. He's now finishing episode one of the TV series!
We brought our company's sponsor on board to help make it a financial reality for Rob...now, on Feb. 20th his work gets evaluated by the higher-ups in this great multi-national corporation, to see what the future holds for this relationship.
We are extremely proud of Rob and the work whe has done and grateful for the incredible work of a few key players at Herman Miller (Derrell Jackson, in particular...I've never seen a marketing executive with more passion and more genuine care for his work and the work of others around him...amazing). The team at Heman Miller has been nothing short of miracle workers in their dedication to both supporting emerging artists and truly supporting projects that have a positive effect on the world.
We will keep you posted with additional footage, but for now will leave you with a short segment pulled out of the footage we shot in The Philippines to tease Herman Miller. Enjoy!
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