Resfest 2003 is going to be better than ever this year. As always, the festival will showcase the year's best short films, music videos and animation through a mix of screenings, parties, seminar. For the first time at RESFEST they are programming live music events with Suicide Girls' favorite The Dandy Warhols performing in Los Angeles. Along with Resfest's always interesting program of over 60 shorts from filmmakers around the world in five shorts programs there will be retrospectives of filmmakers Spike Jonze [Being John Malkovich & Adaptation] and Michel Gondry [Human Nature]. Also innovative filmmaker Roman Coppola's [CQ] new music video will make its world premiere. The Resfest starts Sept 18 in San Francisco and from there goes all over the world including Chicago, Spain, Japan, South Africa and many more.
I got a chance to talk with Jonathan Wells, founder of Res Magazine and organizer of Resfest.
For more info check out resfest.com.
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are the best films coming out of the Resfest this year?
Jonathan Wells: We've got a lot of good stuff. One of the things we are doing is a program called Spike Jonze rarities. In that program we're showing the world premiere of this film called Torrance Rises which is like a documentary about the Torrance Community Dance Troupe. They were featured in the Praise You video for Fatboy Slim.
DRE: Also a Roman Coppola short?
JW: Yeah it's a music video he did which plays more like a short film. It's for this electronic band Phoenix and the song is called Funky Squaredance. It literally starts with type written pages asking Roman to do a video and then he pitches them an idea then there is the actual email of the idea. It's very autobiographical; it talks about his dad and filming the video. It mentions [his sister] Sofia and its really cool.
DRE: What do you think it is about the digital medium that makes filmmakers do more experimental works?
JW: There are a lot of reasons. You can own the means of production so you're not renting gear and spending tons of money on equipment so that allows for more experimentation. You're not on the clock basically. It's not purely the cost factor but more that it encourages people to experiment. It could even be someone like David Lynch who's told us that he makes digital films in his backyard and he doesn't have to ask for permission from any studio. He just goes out and does it.
DRE: What do you think draws filmmakers like Roman Coppola and Spike Jonze because they seem to have a lot of freedom within the studio system?
JW: I think again it can become a personal work. Not everything we show was done on a digital camera or the computer but we project everything digitally. But everything shares a common kind of aesthetic or vibe. Whether you have a big budget or no budget people are making really innovative work. It tells their personal stories. I think all the people we showcase whether they make a living doing commercials, they all have a passion for making moving images. Resfest is one of the few avenues where it's all about showing innovative and noncommercial work. It's our seventh year and people know about us. Some people like to make a film that they want to premiere at Resfest then they know people will see it.
DRE: What sponsors do you have this year?
JW: We have had some sponsors that have been common over the years. Panasonic is on board for the third year in a row. They got us a lot of equipment like the digital projector and Apple Computers are going to be providing free classes in editing, soundtrack creation and DVD creation. Discreet, which is another software company, is going to be a sponsor and Canon, which makes great DV cameras. However it's not just technology but a lifestyle event. We are still looking for that vodka sponsor [laughs] but I would say that Resfest goes beyond what is shown on the screen. There's a whole community that has grown up with us and we try to foster that community. In every venue we have a lobby or a courtyard where we have exhibits which people are calling the Resfest lounge area.
DRE: What makes these sponsors want to get onboard because it's not like this is a very commercial venue like a Lollapalooza or Warped Tour?
JW: One of the things is that we tend to attract an audience that is media savvy. They are very much interested in being exposed to new things whether it is film, music or fashion. We draw people from all these various creative fields. It's not like Sundance where it's mostly film people. at Resfest we do get those people but we also get people who work in music, web designers, fashion designers, art directors and plenty of students because we're also showing some of the best student work.
I have friends in San Francisco who are furniture designers who come to the fest and they say it inspires them to express their own selves creatively.
DRE: How does the audience differ when you go overseas to places like Seoul and Tokyo?
JW: It's funny because the first year we did the festival we went to Capetown South Africa and it looked a lot like the audience from LA. Someone like Shinola, which is this four person animation collective in London who met in school, they are best known for their Radiohead video but we've exposed their work from their very first student films.. Now all over the world there are people who know who they are. That's the best thing about the festival, exposing people to this amazing work we uncover. Whether it is established commercial directors who experiment or the next Spike Jonze.
DRE: Are any of these big directors going to be showing up at the festival?
JW: We're doing a retrospective of Michel Gondry's work where we're showing fifteen years of his work. He's probably best known for his collaboration with Bjork. He's done the most music videos with her and he will be speaking at the event in New York.
DRE: How important is the digital medium nowadays?
JW: I would say when we founded Resfest we really had a vision that people were going to be empowered by these tools. There were lots of disbelievers but its pretty well established now. All the top directors like Steven Soderbergh and Spike Lee have made a film with DV technology. It's happening now. Two years ago we rejiggered what we were doing because digital filmmaking is not all of what Res is about anymore. If that's all we were about we would be last year's news. Once all the film festivals, like Sundance, that once shunned digital filmmaking have now embraced it. It's really about fostering a community where people can see innovative work from around the world. The other thing is when someone does something with the technology that the inventor never intended. That's great to see. Sony never intended anyone to make a feature film with their cameras. That wasn't part of the plan. It was to be something to make your home movies with. For a long time they denied the idea of someone making a feature with the home video cameras, they said one would need the high end DV cameras to do that. But of course people did it and they continue to do that. There are people making films with the super hi-res still cameras. They shoot animated movies or what one filmmaker calls reanimating movies.
DRE: Do you think the digital medium will ever look as good as film?
JW: I think that these are tools that people can choose to do what they want. I do think there is work where people cannot tell the difference. The latest HD cameras are really amazing. 28 Days Later is an amazing movie that was shot on HD cameras. But it doesn't matter because it's scary whereas before we had all these movies that were shot digitally and the story was like This is first digital film from Europe or whatever. If it's a great movie then the medium shouldn't matter. You should forget how it's been shot whether its on Pixelvision or Cinemascope.
DRE: Are the applicants for Resfest getting younger?
JW: It varies. But definitely the audience and the filmmakers are in their 20's and 30's.
DRE: How did Resfest come about originally?
JW: It's like the companies in Silicon Valley that started out in a garage because this started in my basement in San Francisco. The festival preceded the magazine slightly. In 1996, I had approached Karol Martesko, who used to be the publisher of Filmmaker Magazine, to be a sponsor of our festival. We just started talking and he said a lot of independent filmmakers are talking about shooting digitally. So he kind of pitched the idea for the magazine to me and it was an easy sell. Now the work we research all year long for the magazine gets showcased in the festival.
DRE: Have you seen Resfest's influence in mainstream filmmaking?
JW: It's hard to know because they don't always let you know [laughs]. One thing I felt we were a bit part of were two filmmakers, Bob Sabiston and Tommy Pallotta, who got early exposure in Resfest. In 1998 they showed this short film, Roadhead, and Bob said he developed this program called Rotoshop which is a rotoscoping tool on the Macintosh. You go out and shoot DV footage and animate over that. Every year we would show a new piece from them then they worked with Richard Linklater to make Waking Life. The very first time people saw that form of animation was at Resfest.
Stefan Nadelman won our Audience Choice Award and the Grand Jury Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival for Terminal Bar". One of the development guys from VH1 came and saw it. So he hired Stefan to do motion graphics for a JLo special. Whatever with that but now he's the executive producing a show at VH1 about racism that uses his animation. We see commercials where we have a good inkling that someone had been at the Resfest and picked up on that idea. It can be frustrating because you want the filmmaker who spent a lot of time developing that technique to get the position.
DRE: What have been some of the most memorable moments from previous Resfest?
JW: At the Palace of the Fine Arts in San Francisco we showed this Jane's Addiction film called Three Days a few years ago and he did a surprise DJ set. A lot of our venues are very nice and they have rules like, no fire and pyrotechnics. Perry had brought up all these dancers with him from LA, they were wearing all kinds of feathers and the staff must have been looking the other way because some of them started breathing fire. Thank god no one found out.
Music has always been a big part of the festival. We have showed films like Doug Pray's Scratch, Joey Garfield who directed Breath Control: The History Of The Human Beatbox and DJ Qbert's Wave Twisters.
DRE: I love Wave Twisters.
JW: That's a great story. DJ Qbert had told [animator] Sid Garon that he wanted him to make an animated film for his whole record. Everyone thought he was crazy. Sid came to Resfest in 1997, saw this really great short film by Eric Henry called Bored Project Movie and they ended up collaborating for three years on Wave Twisters. This year we're building on the success of our music stuff so we're programming live music events to coincide with the festival. In San Francisco we have Amon Tobin and RJD2. In Los Angeles we have the Dandy Warhols and in New York, the LCD Soundsystem is going to perform at The Bowery Ballroom.
by Daniel Robert Epstein.
I got a chance to talk with Jonathan Wells, founder of Res Magazine and organizer of Resfest.
For more info check out resfest.com.
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are the best films coming out of the Resfest this year?
Jonathan Wells: We've got a lot of good stuff. One of the things we are doing is a program called Spike Jonze rarities. In that program we're showing the world premiere of this film called Torrance Rises which is like a documentary about the Torrance Community Dance Troupe. They were featured in the Praise You video for Fatboy Slim.
DRE: Also a Roman Coppola short?
JW: Yeah it's a music video he did which plays more like a short film. It's for this electronic band Phoenix and the song is called Funky Squaredance. It literally starts with type written pages asking Roman to do a video and then he pitches them an idea then there is the actual email of the idea. It's very autobiographical; it talks about his dad and filming the video. It mentions [his sister] Sofia and its really cool.
DRE: What do you think it is about the digital medium that makes filmmakers do more experimental works?
JW: There are a lot of reasons. You can own the means of production so you're not renting gear and spending tons of money on equipment so that allows for more experimentation. You're not on the clock basically. It's not purely the cost factor but more that it encourages people to experiment. It could even be someone like David Lynch who's told us that he makes digital films in his backyard and he doesn't have to ask for permission from any studio. He just goes out and does it.
DRE: What do you think draws filmmakers like Roman Coppola and Spike Jonze because they seem to have a lot of freedom within the studio system?
JW: I think again it can become a personal work. Not everything we show was done on a digital camera or the computer but we project everything digitally. But everything shares a common kind of aesthetic or vibe. Whether you have a big budget or no budget people are making really innovative work. It tells their personal stories. I think all the people we showcase whether they make a living doing commercials, they all have a passion for making moving images. Resfest is one of the few avenues where it's all about showing innovative and noncommercial work. It's our seventh year and people know about us. Some people like to make a film that they want to premiere at Resfest then they know people will see it.
DRE: What sponsors do you have this year?
JW: We have had some sponsors that have been common over the years. Panasonic is on board for the third year in a row. They got us a lot of equipment like the digital projector and Apple Computers are going to be providing free classes in editing, soundtrack creation and DVD creation. Discreet, which is another software company, is going to be a sponsor and Canon, which makes great DV cameras. However it's not just technology but a lifestyle event. We are still looking for that vodka sponsor [laughs] but I would say that Resfest goes beyond what is shown on the screen. There's a whole community that has grown up with us and we try to foster that community. In every venue we have a lobby or a courtyard where we have exhibits which people are calling the Resfest lounge area.
DRE: What makes these sponsors want to get onboard because it's not like this is a very commercial venue like a Lollapalooza or Warped Tour?
JW: One of the things is that we tend to attract an audience that is media savvy. They are very much interested in being exposed to new things whether it is film, music or fashion. We draw people from all these various creative fields. It's not like Sundance where it's mostly film people. at Resfest we do get those people but we also get people who work in music, web designers, fashion designers, art directors and plenty of students because we're also showing some of the best student work.
I have friends in San Francisco who are furniture designers who come to the fest and they say it inspires them to express their own selves creatively.
DRE: How does the audience differ when you go overseas to places like Seoul and Tokyo?
JW: It's funny because the first year we did the festival we went to Capetown South Africa and it looked a lot like the audience from LA. Someone like Shinola, which is this four person animation collective in London who met in school, they are best known for their Radiohead video but we've exposed their work from their very first student films.. Now all over the world there are people who know who they are. That's the best thing about the festival, exposing people to this amazing work we uncover. Whether it is established commercial directors who experiment or the next Spike Jonze.
DRE: Are any of these big directors going to be showing up at the festival?
JW: We're doing a retrospective of Michel Gondry's work where we're showing fifteen years of his work. He's probably best known for his collaboration with Bjork. He's done the most music videos with her and he will be speaking at the event in New York.
DRE: How important is the digital medium nowadays?
JW: I would say when we founded Resfest we really had a vision that people were going to be empowered by these tools. There were lots of disbelievers but its pretty well established now. All the top directors like Steven Soderbergh and Spike Lee have made a film with DV technology. It's happening now. Two years ago we rejiggered what we were doing because digital filmmaking is not all of what Res is about anymore. If that's all we were about we would be last year's news. Once all the film festivals, like Sundance, that once shunned digital filmmaking have now embraced it. It's really about fostering a community where people can see innovative work from around the world. The other thing is when someone does something with the technology that the inventor never intended. That's great to see. Sony never intended anyone to make a feature film with their cameras. That wasn't part of the plan. It was to be something to make your home movies with. For a long time they denied the idea of someone making a feature with the home video cameras, they said one would need the high end DV cameras to do that. But of course people did it and they continue to do that. There are people making films with the super hi-res still cameras. They shoot animated movies or what one filmmaker calls reanimating movies.
DRE: Do you think the digital medium will ever look as good as film?
JW: I think that these are tools that people can choose to do what they want. I do think there is work where people cannot tell the difference. The latest HD cameras are really amazing. 28 Days Later is an amazing movie that was shot on HD cameras. But it doesn't matter because it's scary whereas before we had all these movies that were shot digitally and the story was like This is first digital film from Europe or whatever. If it's a great movie then the medium shouldn't matter. You should forget how it's been shot whether its on Pixelvision or Cinemascope.
DRE: Are the applicants for Resfest getting younger?
JW: It varies. But definitely the audience and the filmmakers are in their 20's and 30's.
DRE: How did Resfest come about originally?
JW: It's like the companies in Silicon Valley that started out in a garage because this started in my basement in San Francisco. The festival preceded the magazine slightly. In 1996, I had approached Karol Martesko, who used to be the publisher of Filmmaker Magazine, to be a sponsor of our festival. We just started talking and he said a lot of independent filmmakers are talking about shooting digitally. So he kind of pitched the idea for the magazine to me and it was an easy sell. Now the work we research all year long for the magazine gets showcased in the festival.
DRE: Have you seen Resfest's influence in mainstream filmmaking?
JW: It's hard to know because they don't always let you know [laughs]. One thing I felt we were a bit part of were two filmmakers, Bob Sabiston and Tommy Pallotta, who got early exposure in Resfest. In 1998 they showed this short film, Roadhead, and Bob said he developed this program called Rotoshop which is a rotoscoping tool on the Macintosh. You go out and shoot DV footage and animate over that. Every year we would show a new piece from them then they worked with Richard Linklater to make Waking Life. The very first time people saw that form of animation was at Resfest.
Stefan Nadelman won our Audience Choice Award and the Grand Jury Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival for Terminal Bar". One of the development guys from VH1 came and saw it. So he hired Stefan to do motion graphics for a JLo special. Whatever with that but now he's the executive producing a show at VH1 about racism that uses his animation. We see commercials where we have a good inkling that someone had been at the Resfest and picked up on that idea. It can be frustrating because you want the filmmaker who spent a lot of time developing that technique to get the position.
DRE: What have been some of the most memorable moments from previous Resfest?
JW: At the Palace of the Fine Arts in San Francisco we showed this Jane's Addiction film called Three Days a few years ago and he did a surprise DJ set. A lot of our venues are very nice and they have rules like, no fire and pyrotechnics. Perry had brought up all these dancers with him from LA, they were wearing all kinds of feathers and the staff must have been looking the other way because some of them started breathing fire. Thank god no one found out.
Music has always been a big part of the festival. We have showed films like Doug Pray's Scratch, Joey Garfield who directed Breath Control: The History Of The Human Beatbox and DJ Qbert's Wave Twisters.
DRE: I love Wave Twisters.
JW: That's a great story. DJ Qbert had told [animator] Sid Garon that he wanted him to make an animated film for his whole record. Everyone thought he was crazy. Sid came to Resfest in 1997, saw this really great short film by Eric Henry called Bored Project Movie and they ended up collaborating for three years on Wave Twisters. This year we're building on the success of our music stuff so we're programming live music events to coincide with the festival. In San Francisco we have Amon Tobin and RJD2. In Los Angeles we have the Dandy Warhols and in New York, the LCD Soundsystem is going to perform at The Bowery Ballroom.
by Daniel Robert Epstein.