My friend and incredibly respected collegue wrote an Interview with the “Godfather of Gore” Herschel Gordon Lewis for Greencine.com this month. Michael must have been so excited. What a story!!! I get twitterpated just thinking about it!
Smart man he is, he mentioned a great Interview conducted with Lewis in one of my favorite sites Bright Light Film Journal. Also worthy reading.
SF has an embarrassment of cinematic riches.
On a weekly basis I write this plural voiced weekly movie listings for SFist called “Let’s all go to the Movies”. It’s voluntary but the SFist circulation is high, I like writing the piece and I feel it keeps me apprised of the ever changing tide so why not do it? I can also occasionally put in my 2p about how some film should be in local theatres (so ask your theatre owner for it like Meryl Streep told us to!) or how everyone should be going to Other Cinema.
I intend to support this SFist weekly publication with a link from my blog…but next time I’ll do it closer to the actual post.
At first I thought I’d keep a blog because, like other freelance writers, I spend a lot of time pitching film write-ups to interested editors. On this interest, I’ll watch and research the films and their makers, prepare questions for filmmakers, even write feature pieces…and then not sell them. Don’t get me wrong, interest is great, but interest isn’t a sale.
So, as in the cases of clothing or coffee, an editor might like to know a bit about what s/he’s buying and as Ben & Jerry well know, samples help sales.
I sell interviews more than any other variety of write up. I work hard to prepare for these interviews and do my best to ask well-conceived questions. I thought I’d post my unsold/un-pitched interviews on this blog, particularly those acquired at film festivals.
Film Festivals are magical places. Filmmakers living the high-risk dream come to represent and explain the films they’ve poured themselves, their home equity and their credit cards into. They want distribution and they know talking to journalists helps with buzz and buzz helps their chances. This rudimentary logic equation is of no help if I (the journalist) just sit on my interviews until an editor decides (well after the distribution deal is set, btw) the piece is of interest to his/her audience. The Internet moves quickly. I haven’t figured out how to maximize this blog thing yet, but one thing I know is I’m not helping anyone by waiting to start it.
So there it is.
I intend to offer courtesy alerts to the filmmakers I include on this blog and include links to work I’ve done. If I’m lucky, I’ll engender some discussion with the filmmakers I’ve spoken to about their works and mine. Additionally, I’m alerting Griffin and Apple (I know, they’re way bigger than me). You see, I record my interviews on my iPod using a griffin iTalk accessory and absolutely every interview I conduct begins with 10-90 seconds dedicated to questions about the “magic tool” we’re talking into. The publicity has to be good for someone - let’s hope it’s me!
Thanks for attending and I hope the podcasts, as informal as they are, interest you.
Link friendly! Link often!
xo
Sara Schieron
Your friendly neighborhood film journalist