By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

2015 Sundance Adds “Art Of Film Panels” With Robert Redford, George Lucas, Ross McElwee, Sam Green And More

Posted Thursday, January 8th, 2015 - Comments Off on 2015 Sundance Adds “Art Of Film Panels” With Robert Redford, George Lucas, Ross McElwee, Sam Green And More
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2015 Sundance Film Festival Celebrates Art of Film with Panels with Robert Redford, George Lucas and More Discussing the Craft of Filmmaking

Park City, UT — Sundance Institute announced today that the 2015 Sundance Film Festival will take an unprecedented look at the art and craft of filmmaking with its new ‘Art of Film Weekend’ series of offscreen programming. The 2015 Festival, taking placeJanuary 22 to February 1 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah, is the centerpiece public program for the Institute, which provides resources to independent artists on a year-round basis through its 24 annual residency labs and more than $2.5 million in grants. The Institute also holds public workshops through out the year that provide expert advice and critical insights into the craft and process of filmmaking.

Art of Film Weekend (January 29-31) will highlight the unique roles of writers, directors, producers, actors, cinematographers, editors, production designers, art directors, costume designers, casting directors, sound designers, composers and the countless others who bring stories to life on screen. The series will kick off with Robert Redford and George Lucas discussing their careers and creative process with Leonard Maltin and continue throughout the second half of the Festival with additional panels on topics including artistry in film music, virtual reality, visual design, editing and documentary.

John Cooper, Director of the Sundance Film Festival, said, “Exploring cinema, body and soul, Art of Film Weekend will take aspiring filmmakers and film-loving audiences behind the scenes to see the creative, collaborative spirit of artists at every stage of the independent filmmaking process that is so core to our Festival.”

For dates, times, locations and ticket information for these and other panels, including the free daily Cinema Café program, visitsundance.org/festival. Join the conversation on social media with #ArtFilmWeekend.

Power of Story: Visions of Independence — Kicking off Art of Film Weekend, join Robert Redford and George Lucas—two iconic filmmakers who epitomize the spirit of independence in American cinema—in conversation with critic Leonard Maltin. Distinctive as storytellers, their pioneering visions have also yielded innovative enterprises and institutions that cultivate creativity and imagination, advance technology, and push the realm of possibility. This will be live streamed on sundance.org.

Art of the Score: A Performance and Discussion with Harry Gregson-Williams — We explore the artists’ approach to film music with renowned composer Harry Gregson-Williams (the Shrek series, The Chronicles of Narnia series, The Town, Man on Fire, Kingdom of Heaven, Spy Game and Blackhat), who shares his creative process from that first spark of a musical conception through the delivery of a final score. With film excerpts and a live performance, including electric violinist Hugh Marsh, we explore the indispensable role music plays in cinema.

A New Language in Filmmaking: Virtual Reality — Over a century has passed since the advent of film, allowing filmmakers to continuously hone, craft, and form the language of cinema, as well as pass those teachings on to a new crop of filmmakers. Virtual reality, on the other hand, has only recently emerged, and with it, a completely new language and approach to storytelling. Learn from the top directors working in this medium as they take you through their journey of failure and success in virtual reality storytelling. Join Chris Milk (director, An Evolution of Verse, Sound and Vision, Wilderness Downtown), Rose Troche (director,Perspective, The L Word), Saschka Unseld (director, The Blue Umbrella, story consultant to Oculus), and Glen Keane (animator,The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Duet).

Design Inspiration — Where does the visual design of a film begin, and how does it contribute to the overall art of cinematic storytelling? Through an illuminating conversation that integrates handpicked visual and filmic references, discover the creative processes of three talented individuals (and frequent collaborators of Spike Jonze) known for their stunning artistic sensibilities: cinematographer Lance Acord (God’s Pocket, Where the Wild Things Are, Lost in Translation); production designer K.K. Barrett(Her, Human Nature, Marie Antoinette, Being John Malkovich); and costume designer Casey Storm (Her, Where the Wild Things Are, Adaptation).

Cutting Class: An Editor’s Guide to Storytelling — Spend an unforgettable afternoon with award-winning editor Sarah Flack(The Limey, Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette) as she leads an in-depth session about her editing process, examining everything from the construction and evolution of scenes to the nuances of storytelling from an editor’s perspective. Flack will shed light on the unique relationship between director and editor, referencing her collaborations with Sofia Coppola, Sam Mendes, and Steven Soderbergh.

The Doc Art Mix Tape — Perhaps more than any other cinema form, documentary is all too often discussed more in terms of content rather than its craft. But through its artful construction, distinctive storytelling styles, memorable characters, and groundbreaking aesthetics, non-fiction film has given us remarkable and lasting cinematic moments. Join us for a personal journey through documentary guided by Sam Green (The Weather Underground, Utopia in Four Movements) and Ross McElwee (Sherman’s March, Time Indefinite, Bright Leaves), who unearth the rare and special moments that illustrate the remarkable range of the form.

The Sundance Film Festival®
The Sundance Film Festival has introduced global audiences to some of the most groundbreaking films of the past three decades, including Whiplash, Boyhood, Rich Hill, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Little Miss Sunshine, sex, lies, and videotape, Reservoir Dogs, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, An Inconvenient Truth, Precious and Napoleon Dynamite, and through its New Frontier initiative has showcased groundbreaking media works by artists and creative technologists including Chris Milk, Doug Aitken, Palmer Luckey, Klip Collective and Nonny de la Pena. The Festival is a program of the non-profit Sundance Institute®. 2015 Festival sponsors to date include: Presenting Sponsors – HP, Acura, SundanceTV and Chase Sapphire Preferred®; Leadership Sponsors – Adobe, Airbnb, Grey Goose® Vodka, LensCrafters, Southwest Airlines and YouTube; Sustaining Sponsors – Blundstone Australia Pty Ltd, Canada Goose, Canon U.S.A., Inc., Chobani, LLC, Omnicom, Stella Artois® and VIZIO. Sundance Institute recognizes critical support from the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development, and the State of Utah as Festival Host State. The support of these organizations helps offset the Festival’s costs and sustain the Institute’s year-round programs for independent artists. sundance.org/festival

Sundance Institute
Founded in 1981 by Robert Redford, Sundance Institute is a nonprofit organization that provides and preserves the space for artists in film, theatre, and new media to create and thrive. The Institute’s signature Labs, granting, and mentorship programs, dedicated to developing new work, take place throughout the year in the U.S. and internationally. The Sundance Film Festival and other public programs connect audiences to artists in igniting new ideas, discovering original voices, and building a community dedicated to independent storytelling. Sundance Institute has supported such projects as Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Sin Nombre, The Invisible War, The Square, Dirty Wars, Spring Awakening, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder andFun Home. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon