Mid-summer at the movies. Getting a little tired of faraway galaxies, superheroes in tights and botched futures? GreenCine is proud to be a presenting sponsor of Independent Exposure, a refreshing reminder on the last Tuesday of each month that cinema is more than sensorama. We spoke to Joel S. Bachar of Microcinema International about the program. And the movement.
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Microcinema...
...designates a small venue or cinema, moving or temporary, which shows alternative short or feature-length films that would normally fall "under the cultural radar" of the mainstream movie theaters and/or art house cinemas. ... The first public film screening was in a microcinema! The very first commercial exhibition of a projected motion picture was the Lumière Brothers' screening of approximately 10 short films, lasting only 20 minutes in total, at the Salon Indien, the basement lounge of the Grand Cafe on the Boulevard des Capucines in Paris, December 28, 1895.
From "The Exhibition Revolution" by Joel S. Bachar and Taso Lagos
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Greencine: Reading through the material on and linked from the Microcinema International site, I'm struck by what seems to be an interesting juxtaposition. On the one hand, microcinema as an event, centered on the exhibition end of the scale, has a tradition that, as you've pointed out, goes back to the beginnings of cinema itself. Small-scale, almost private showings where the audience often becomes an informal community. And almost viscerally linked with that experience is the look and feel of film, the sound of the projector, all that.
On the other hand, microcinema as a means of production is rapidly becoming more accessible, affordable, user-friendly, the works, thanks to digital technology. And then the Net makes it possible to cut corners when it comes to distribution as well.
Even setting aside the whole celluloid purist vs digital innovator argument going on among Hollywood, Indiewood and truly independent, low or no budget filmmakers (and among critics and cinephiles as well), the communal, smoked-filled "real world" room vs the lone viewer clicking to see a Flash animation seem so far apart it's hard to imagine talking about both in the same breath.
And yet you do. You seem to eagerly embrace both worlds and have not only obviously done quite a lot of thinking about where digital tech might take the medium but also encourage filmmakers to submit their work on mini-DV, DVD, etc. along with more traditional formats. What led to this all-encompassing embrace? In these arguments, people usually fall on one side or the other. How did you end up with one foot on either side of the fence?
Joel S. Bachar: A great observation and great question. Let me clarify one point: At some point during the dotcom era, the term "microcinema" began to be used to describe short films that were made on a computer to be shown on a computer via streaming. Although the Internet and the computer can be a "venue" to show films and a delivery mechanism for films, we definately feel that the term "microcinema" is much more relevant to the offline/real time/real world physical space of a venue. However, I do want to answer your question more clearly.
We are media agnostic. We show works shot on Super 8, 16mm and 35mm film and we show works shot on all forms of video or created entirely on a computer. To us, it doesn't matter how a director creates his or her art; as long as he or she's creating art, we are happy.
Similarly, we are venue agnostic. We love the traditional movie theaters of days past and today's art house cinemas as a venue for a more "pure" cinematic experience; however, microcinema -- the movement -- is all about literally moving beyond those four walls of the art house cinema or megaplex and into the galleries, museums, warehouses, nightclubs and cafes of the world. Further, "venues" exist outdoors, on river barges, in gunpowder factories, and, yes, on the Internet, on television, on Palm Pilots.
So, the term "venue" has really become much broader even since we began seven years ago. We pride ourselves on always being as fair as possible to all artists because we feel that being a purist towards celluloid film is unfair to the video artists and vice versa. Film projectors are great! The sound of the film going through the projector is one of the most nostalgic sounds on the planet, but video projectors are also wonderful, as our plasma screens, video walls, and other new technologies. We have to evolve with technology and embrace it to its fullest because when used properly, technology can be extremely helpful and useful.
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Independent Exposure
To catch the program, be over 21, bring along $5 and get yourself to the 111 Minna Gallery by 8 pm on the following Tuesdays: June 25, July 30, August 27, September 24 and October 29. You'll find the 111 Minna Gallery in downtown San Francisco between Howard and Mission at 2nd Street.
Click here to find out more about the June 25 program.
Presented by Microcinema International, Film Arts Foundation and 111 Minna Gallery.
Presenting Sponsor: GreenCine.
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Our goal is to embrace the best of both the offline/analog world and the online/digital world. Our ideal world would be a place where you and your friends can go out to a cool cafe in Berlin on a Friday night, meet for dinner and a drink and watch Independent Exposure on a big projection screen, via a small digital video projector, which is being fed a signal via satellite or the Internet because we have programmed the screening from San Francisco to appear in Berlin on that night!
We see the latest technologies making our dreams become a reality.
People say that new technologies are democratizing the medium which is true -- in part -- but there is a saying: "If the only tool in the toolbox is a hammer then everything looks like a nail." In other words: New technologies don't make you a better writer or director. So learn the tools, learn how to write, learn how to make a film... and then find the best tool for that project (which just might be 35mm film).
Greencine: Let's say you come face-to-face with a person who's never heard of Stan Brakhage or Jonas Mekas, doesn't know Man Ray also made films, doesn't know Tim Burton is putting shorts on the Web, hasn't viewed much on the Web, really, other than trailers for upcoming Hollywood releases because, hey, who doesn't like movies. A blank slate, in other words. What would you say to encourage him or her to try out an evening at an Independent Exposure screening?
Joel S. Bachar: There are two things we say about Independent Exposure to our audiences.
One: "If you like everything that we show then we've done something wrong." Because its just impossible to please everyone, plus we are not trying to please everyone.
And two: "You never know what you are going to get at Independent Exposure." And I think that people really appreciate this. I think that they like not knowing what they will see, they like not knowing the directors, they like not knowing the actors. It makes the audience feel like they are part of the discovery process -- that they are discovering emerging talent. I think that we ask audiences to take a risk -- its a small one, an hour of their time and $5 -- but to come join our experiment. We don't really ask people to say that these films are "better than" or "worse than" films they have seen, but perhaps that they will just be content knowing that they have seen something just plain "different." And sometimes different can be a good thing.
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