Nick Dorra Production Ltd – Blog

I’m happy to announce that Nick Dorra Productions in now branching out into documentaries as well! Together with director Antti Takkunen I have been developing a documentary about the dynamic duo of Energia productions, director Timo Vuorensola and producer Samuli Torssonen.

We were drawn to their story as people who have a vision and pursue it regardless of what anyone else says. They’ve also said publicly that they want to wreck the Hollywood model of making films. This twin attitiude of pursuing their own thing and challenging old models of thought makes them exceptionally interesting and their story worth telling.

This monday we were at the Energia offices and shot an interview with Timo, which went very well. We’re trying to soon catch Samuli on tape (correction on memory card) as well and then it’s off to plan the structure & visual side of the doc. Antti has some very interesting ideas about storytelling in documentaries, which we hope to be able to use in this project. It’s still early days with the film but we’re sure that we have a big story in the making.

Follow the announcements on this blog or on Twitter to keep up to date!

I must say that I am still a bit gobsmacked. Last Saturday YLE Teema, along with a few other channels around Europe, broadcasted the monumental documentary 24h Berlin. The doc, if you can really call it that, was shot on the 5th of September 2008 and broadcast exactly one year later. The film makers followed dozens of people in their daily activities all around Berlin, and the film was edited so that what happened at 6:30 AM would be broadcast at 6:30 AM.

There were something like 80 film crews working frantically all over Berlin and I can only imagine what went through the editing teams mind when they first started to review the hours and hours of material. You can read more about the details of the project at www.24hberlin.tv

To return to the gobsmacking, what I’m really surprised about is how big an impact the whole thing made on me. If you think about it, the premise sounds interesting but boring. I mean to follow ordinary people around, while they’re driving their cars or drinking a beer or lying in a hospital bed. But when I switched the programme on, it was so enthralling that I just had to keep watching. The film makers were very professional, they found angles and themes to keep the viewer interested and it was solid documentary making at least for the 5 or so hours that I watched it.

And the best thing I think was the idea to broadcast the show all in one go. This way you could tune in to what was happening when you had time, and there would always be something interesting going on. And the viewer would also be rewarded for tuning in later. An example for this was the show at the Opera, which started at 8 PM and was referred to every now and then. When I shut down the tv at some point, went over to a friends place and we turned the tv on at around 10:30, the doc returned to the Opera to show that the show had ended. It was things like these that clearly brought across the main point of the whole programme: Berlin never sleeps and there’s always something going on somewhere.

The effect of the documentary has stayed with me for the last few days, and it has kept me thinking and looking at the world around me in a different light. On Saturday night I heard parties through open windows, and imagined that documentary teams could be there too, filming everything. I saw my street on Sunday morning and looked at the people walking around, thinking what their stories were, what they would tell the camera when asked about their day, their lives, their dreams. And this is one of the biggest reasons I think 24h Berlin is the best thing ever made for tv: It made the ordinary extraordinary.

If you caught the show, please share your thoughts in the comments!

(Here’s Deutsche Welle’s piece on the project, in english: )

Brad Warner and Erik Proulx say “no thanks” to festival audiences and instead take their films to where their fans are

I’ve been working for the Espoo Ciné international film festival this week, and on Wednesday I got the chance to catch Brad Warner’s Q&A session after the screening of his documentary “Cleveland’s Screaming!“. Among the many Q’s and A’s Brad answered the question whether the film has been well received elsewhere and if it has toured many festivals in the States.

He said that after mailing lots of applications to festivals, each with 20 or so dollars attached, only to have them rejected, he gave up on the idea as a waste of money. One of the most important screenings for him had been in an Ohio punk club, where the people were genuinely interested in the film and knew how to appreciate it.

Lemonade for the laid-off

Brad’s answer reminded me of the comment that Erik Proulx, the director of the upcoming documentary “Lemonade“, made in FastCompany. Proulx used to work in advertising, but after being handed the pink slip for the third time in less than ten years, he decided he wanted to do something else. He found out about others like him and decided to make a documentary about laid-off advertising people and their new lives (for the whole story go here).

Proulx plans to make his documentary available for free download, thereby making it non-eligible for most festivals. However, in the article Proulx says:

“I’d rather have a million laid-off viewers than 500 at a film festival.”

Film makers set their own rules

Now, there are two ways to argue about film makers taking this approach. One way would be to say that the films maybe are of mediocre quality (I personally have seen neither, so this is only for the sake of argument) and wouldn’t make it onto the programmes of large festivals. Most of the US festivals also charge the above mentioned fees just to preview and consider a film for the programme. It could be said that the film makers aren’t confident enough to make this kind of “investment”.

The other way is to see this as a possible new trend enhanced by social media and the idea of sharing. Instead of making their films available only to film buffs and professionals (the gatekeepers and inner circle of the artform) via festivals, they choose internet distribution and highly targeted screenings to reach their audiences.

Personally I find the second argument both more credible and more interesting. It speaks of a well defined and very niche target audience (which is essential for the success of any film), the embracing of new technologies and trends like the long tail, as well as an own definition of success, not set by peers or gatekeepers but by the film makers themselves, as it should be.

Bottom line

What this means to the whole filmmaking community is that old structures are challenged and new values compete with traditional ones. The new, potentially huge audiences outside the festival circuit will invariably cherish different aspects of the films than the traditionalist film buffs. They might even be interested in donating to the film makers, something that is both unusual and very difficult to arrange at festival screenings.

What are your thoughts, is this just an old story of non-talented outsiders making a virtue out of neccessity, or will downloads and social media severely challenge the festival institution?

I’m back from my holiday away from work & the internet. I must say I didn’t miss much, in either sense of the word =) But now it’s time to get back to business, and the first thing I want to announce is that our next short film What’s up? is well into production by now.

The folks at Anima Vitae, led by director Meruan Salim, started with modelling and rigging of the main character already in June. The film will be pushed along at a leasurely pace, as down-time on the studio’s bigger projects allows it. The final date for the premiere is set in spring next year, but it’s also very well possible that the film will be finished earlier.

As a sneak preview, here are two development pictures of our hero, Huuhaa:

Just returned from Annecy on saturday, where I had a real blast! For the first time I arrived already monday at noon, instead of my usual tuesday evening, so I had the time to watch more films than usual. And boy, there were some good ones! Among my favourites were Brendan and the Secret of Kells (I’d describe it as Spirited Away with a celtic feel) and the Log Jam series, both of which happened to win prizes as well.

The business side was good as well, there was a lot of action at the MIFA animation market despite of all recession talk in the months before. I had some great meetings and many projects took bigger or smaller steps. One of the highlights of every MIFA is the Finnish Picnic organised by our Finnanimation initiative. Here’s some shots from the action:

(Photo of me & finnish liquorice vodka by Claire Tenant)

All in all it was a great trip, business wise as well as fun. See you in France next year!