MunaBros.com

For those that have found their way to this old blog in search of some good DIY filmmaking tips and insight, please visit the official Muna Brothers site, MUNABROS.COM. Featuring everything from behind the scenes commentary of Shiro's Head to filmmaking info, everything is now at our permanent online home. See you there!

Shiro's Head Screens at the University of Guam

Click Here for Shiro's Head @ UOG Ticket Info

Okay, I guess the smoke isn't clearing as fast as I thought it would BUT that's a good thing. This week, Shiro's Head will screen at the University of Guam College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences to help raise funds to send 2 UOG students to take a student film out to Bali for a Pacific Asia conference. The name of their film: "Casting Our Net: Rediscovering Community in the 21st Century". The name of the conference: The East West Center International Conference: "Building an Asia Pacific Community: Unity in Diversity", November 13-15, 2008.

This is a pivotal time for Pacific Asian media. With "Shiro's Head", "Casting Our Net" and now "I Fuetsan I Taotao", Don and I want to help the momentum along and to create an awareness for local art by showcasing it where it needs to be. It all starts with the effort. A BIG thanks to Sandra Okada, Charissa Aguon and others involved for initiating such a bold and much needed project. Click Here for Shiro's Head @ UOG Ticket Info

...and yes, I'll be posting about Hawaii and Philly. I'm still unwinding.

Shiro's Head Encore Shows!

Thank you to all of you who have voiced your demand for more showings of Shiro's Head! Because of you, there will be 5 Encore Presentations of Shiro's Head this weekend at the Agana Center Stadium Theaters!

So for those that haven't had a chance to get tickets for last weekend's showings (or would just like to see it again) now's your chance! The dates and times are as follows:

Saturday, October 11th
12pm, 3pm and 7pm
Tickets are $10 and are available at these SELECT 76 Circle K locations: Sinajana, Barrigada, Ypao Road (across the UIU building), Dededo and Anigua

Sunday, October 12th
12pm and 3pm
Tickets are $10 and are available at these SELECT 76 Circle K locations: Sinajana, Barrigada, Ypao Road (across the UIU building), Dededo and Anigua

Don and I will be present for a question and answer segment after each show. If you're too shy to raise your hand, no worries. Feel free to come up to us and we can chat face to face if you got time.

Again, THANK YOU for letting your voices be heard. Bring a friend and we'll see you there!

p.s. to my personal friends, guys - especially Dur - don't wait 'til the last minute again, pare! hehe.

Diesel Film Racing - 24 Hour Filmmaking

Can you make a movie in 24 hours? Geoff Summers of Filmracing.com has informed me that their nationwide competition and 2008 city tour is making its rounds. Contestants have just 24 hours to write, shoot, edit and score an original film no longer than 4 minutes (including credits) based on their theme and surprise element assignment.

Contestants have the chance to win up to $2,500 in cash and thousands more in HUGE prizes that include Avid Media Composer software, a scholarship to Writer's Bootcamp, Storyboard Quick v.5 and Gorilla 4 Standard Edition software. Plus you can vie for awards in categories such as Direction, Acting, Writing, Cinematography, Editing, Original Music Score, Sound Design, Costume Design, Visual FX, Special FX and many more.

You'll also have the opportunity at national exposure with your flick playing on the big screens nationally and possibly in other countries. It's a great avenue for budding filmmakers to test their creative and technical skills in just 24 hours.

Good luck to you all! And thanks for the heads, up Geoff! For more info, visit the Diesel Film Racing Tour at Filmracing.com

Writers - Now What?

With the writer's strike over and a three year deal in place, the next obvious question is...what now? Well, first and foremost all the red carpet hounds can sigh in relief knowing that the Oscars will carry on in traditional fashion and everyone can get their glamour and glitz fix - for the moment anyway. But what about afterwards? What about the long haul? Which direction does this take the creative content that everyone has been making a big fuss about during the last 100 days?

New Media
With the strike emphasizing the importance of creative content in the realm of new media in the eyes of both the studios and the creators, it's no secret that we'll be seeing a flurry of new and innovative ways to distribute the content. The studios have the green light and the writers have consented and now we just wait and see.

Adios HD-DVD
With a self-proclaimed victory over the HD-DVD format, Blu-Ray looks to be taking itself a step further with the major studios as well, contributing the leap towards media-rich developments in the way creative content is distributed. There's one avenue.

AppleTV
With the AppleTV 2 release mentioned in the key note speech from Steve Jobs, iTunes will now rent movies as well as sell movies for purchase over the internet complete with previews, trailers and everything else that includes creative content regarding movies. With TV shows already on iTunes and the success of Apple TV now with the ability to stream in full HD, this takes viewing your favorite TV show or movie huge leaps forward into the distribution of creative content. Moreso than the regular YouTubers and average network online sites that stream their own tv shows.

Opporunities
So, buckle in everyone. The distribution of creative content is now a consented cash cow.

Sundance Short Films Online for Free

The Sundance Film Festival in conjunction with NetFlix, Xbox and Apple iTunes, announce that they will continue their tradition of bringing selected short film submissions to the masses. The exclusive shorts can be viewed on their site and on the NetFlix member website, free of charge. According to Sundance, "everyday of the Festival one new short film will premiere online every 24 hours."

Aside from just viewing the streaming versions, short films can also be available for purchase and download at the Xbox LIVE marketplace Video Store (for $1.99) and the iTunes movie store ($1.99 for your iPhone, iPod or Apple TV). All three platforms will be launched beginning January 18, 2008 all the way 'til 2011. The short films that will be showcased will be announced by Sundance before the start of the Festival.

Short Films and Documentaries Take the Lead at Festivals

Although you still get the occasional million dollar plus-budget shorts and docs taking up undeserved space at indie fests, the rise in submission numbers say a lot about emerging independent movie makers. Movies such as 10mph are seeing tons of love from the indie community trail which was blazed by others before it like Murderball, Super Size Me, Iraq in Fragments and Born Into Brothels.

With last week's release of their 2008 Short Film selection, Sundance Film Festival announces they've received "a record number of submissions" according to Sundance Film Festival Senior Programmer Trevor Goth.

Its counterpart, The Slamdance Film Festival will be screening "more documentaries than ever before" says Sarah Diamond, Director of Programming/Chair of Documentary Competition. The Slamdance fest programming includes documentaries, special screenings, shorts (which will be announced tomorrow) and narrative features (out of 1,200 submissions, they'll only be screening 29 of them - whoa). And still, with as many categories and submissions between the two of them, these top tier film fests are seeing more and more filmmakers delve into shorts and docs. Why?

Says Goth, "We are really proud to present the entire shorts program, which represents a higher level of filmmaking craft than ever before. The work is extremely broad and ranges from outrageous animation to fascinating short documentaries, to original and wild comedies to outstanding dramas."

Slamdance's Diamond goes on to say, "“Slamdance is emerging as a major festival for documentaries. The 2008 doc slate is themed around people who have chosen the path not often taken, from a schizophrenic pop star, to a family of wild animal trainers, to competitors in the Miss Gay America pageant. Our documentary programming team was moved by these films celebrating the diversity of human experience.”

Both festivals will run from Jan 17-25, with Sundance continuing on 'til the 27th .

Sundance Announces 2008 Film Lineup

The annual Sundance Film Festival has announced their 2008 lineup for competition (Jan.17-27 Park City, Utah) as well as their Premieres, Spectrum, New Frontier and Park City at Midnight sections. According to reports, this year has brought submissions in record-breaking numbers.

From Sundance:
"121 feature-length films were selected including 87 world premieres, 14 North American premieres, and 12 U.S. premieres representing 25 countries with 55 first-time filmmakers, including 32 in competition. These films were selected from 3,624 feature film submissions composed of 2,021 U.S. and 1,603 international feature-length films. These numbers represent an increase from last year when 1,852 U.S. and 1,435 international feature-length films were considered."

• Documentary Competition - selecting 16 films out of 953 entries - each one of them a world premiere.
• Dramatic Competition - 16 films were selected from 1,068 submissions. Each film is a world premiere.
• World Cinema Documentary Competition - 16 films selected from 620 submissions that represent 8 countries
• World Cinema Dramatic Compeition - 16 selections from 983 submissions represent 17 countries

Festival films screen in nine sections: Documentary Competition, Dramatic Competition, World Cinema Documentary Competition, World Cinema Dramatic Competition, Spectrum, New Frontier, Park City at Midnight, and from the Sundance Collection.

Shorts will be announced later this week.