It's SOC Week and we're all invited!!

This week is SOC Week which means there are a ton of interesting events happening on campus in celebration of the American University School of Communication.

Check out SOC Week on Facebook
See their website
PDF of the full SOC Week schedule.

There's plenty going on Tuesday, March 27th for SOC Week:
(Be sure to check the full schedule to see all upcoming events)

MEET THE FILMMAKER: NICK FRANCIS
Brought to you by the SOC Center for Social Media
http://centerforsocialmedia.org/events
Tuesday, March 27
4:30-6:00pm
Wechsler Theater (MGC 315)
Nick Francis, Co/Writer, Director, Producer of Black Gold (http://blackgoldmovie.com/) and When China Met Africa (http://whenchinametafrica.com/), will hold a Q&A session. When China Met Africa will screen that evening at Landmark's E Street Cinema, Time: TBA.

These titles are also available in Media Services:

Black Gold - DVD 2245 and Streaming Video

When China met Africa - DVD 9246

* "SOCIAL NETWORKING" - YOUR PATH TO AN INTERNSHIP OR JOB
Brought to you by the AU Career Center
Tuesday, March 27
5:00-6:30 pm
Butler Conference Room
This workshop will be lead by the AU SOC Career Advisors and will discuss how students can use online platforms to market themselves during the internship/job search.

* SECRETS REVEALED: THE SOMETIMES COMPLICATED, ALWAYS ENTERTAINING JOURNEYS OF A WILDLIFE FILMMAKER
Brought to you by the SOC Center for Environmental Filmmaking
http://www.american.edu/soc/calendar/?id=3403209
Tuesday, March 27
7:00-9:00pm
Wechsler Theater (MGC 315)
Emmy Award winning filmmaker Kevin Bachar, founder and director of Pangolin Pictures, has made natural history films for all the big networks. In this presentation, he will show a number of fascinating clips to illustrate the major challenges facing wildlife filmmakers in the field.

DC Environmental Film Festival: The Best and Worst of Wildlife Films - Tuesday, March 20th at 7pm in Wechsler Theater

DC Environmental Film Festival
An Evening with Chris Palmer: The Best and Worst of Wildlife Films
Tuesday, March 20 at 7pm, Mary Graydon Center's Wechsler Theater.

When Chris Palmer’s book Shooting in the Wild: An Insider’s Account of Making Movies in the Animal Kingdom was published in 2010, it sparked praise, great interest, & controversy. Exposing the thrilling, yet sometimes tragic, world of wildlife filmmaking, his book revealed a dark side to the industry. In this special evening, Chris discusses the ethics of filmmaking and highlights its worst & best examples with numerous, controversial, high-impact clips from wildlife films.

Reception with refreshments at 6:30pm. FREE admission.
Sponsor: Center for Environmental Filmmaking
Contact: Chris Palmer, palmer@american.edu, 202-885-3408
Web: http://www.dcenvironmentalfilmfest.org/films/show/710

85 films Martin Scorsese says you should see

Martin Scorsese did a four hour interview with Fast Company last year for the December/January issue. In the interview he talked a lot about the business of making films and how he's managed to stay in it and remain relevant for so long.

Over the four hours, Scorsese referenced 85 "films you need to see to know anything about film." Some films he briefly mentioned, and others he spoke about more in depth. Fast Company compiled a list which includes his direct quotes about the films where applicable, and which provides brief descriptions of the films when quotes weren't available. This list is being blogged about as a unique film list that's almost like the ultimate film course designed by a legendary filmmaker. There are some omissions noted by the ArtInfo blog, but they do recognize that he couldn't list every influential film in history.

Here's the beginning of Scorsese's list. Go to Fast Company for the complete list.

Ace in the Hole: "This Billy Wilder film was so tough and brutal in its cynicism that it died a sudden death at the box office, and they re-released it under the title Big Carnival, which didn’t help. Chuck Tatum is a reporter who’s very modern--he’ll do anything to get the story, to make up the story! He risks not only his reputation, but also the life of this guy who’s trapped in the mine." 1951

All That Heaven Allows: In this Douglas Sirk melodrama, Rock Hudson plays a gardener who falls in love with a society widow played by Jane Wyman. Scandale! 1955

America, America: Drawn directly from director Elia Kazan’s family history, this film offers a passionate, intense view of the challenges faced by Greek immigrants at the end of the 19th century. 1963

An American in Paris: This Vincente Minnelli film, with Gene Kelly, picked up the idea of stopping within a film for a dance from The Red Shoes. 1951

Apocalypse Now: This Francis Ford Coppola masterpiece is from a period when directors like Brian DePalma, John Milius, Paul Schrader, Scorsese and others had great freedom—freedom that they then lost. 1979

Arsenic and Old Lace: Scorsese is a big fan of many Frank Capra movies, and this Cary Grant vehicle is one of several that he’s enjoyed with his family at his office screening room. 1944

The Bad and the Beautiful: Vincente Minnelli directed this film about a cynical Hollywood mogul trying to make a comeback. It stars Kirk Douglas, Lana Turner, Walter Pidgeon and Dick Powell. 1952

The Band Wagon: “It’s my favorite of the Vincente Minnelli musicals. I love the storyline that combines Faust and a musical comedy, and the disaster that results. Tony Hunter, the lead character played by Fred Astaire, is a former vaudeville dancer whose time has passed, and who’s trying to make it on Broadway, which is a very different medium of course. By the time the movie was made, the popularity of the Astaire/Rogers films had waned, raising the question of what are you going to do with Fred Astaire in Technicolor? So, really, Tony Hunter is Fred Astaire--his whole reputation is on the line, and so was Fred Astaire’s.” 1953

Born on the Fourth of July: Produced by Universal Pictures under Tom Pollock and Casey Silver, this Tom Cruise movie (directed by Oliver Stone) was an example of how that studio “wanted to make special pictures,” says Scorsese. 1989

Cape Fear: As he once explained to Stephen Spielberg over dinner in Tribeca, one of Scorsese’s fears about directing a remake of this film was that, “The original was so good. I mean, you’ve got Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, Polly Bergen, it’s terrific!” 1962

See more at Fast Company.

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Visiting Filmmaker Series - Spring 2012: Heather Courtney - "Where Soldiers Come From" - Thursday, March 1, 2012 from 2:30 - 7pm

Heather Courtney - "Where Soldiers Come From"

Date: Thursday, March 1, 2012 - 2:30 - 7:00pm

Join us for a Master Class with filmmaker Heather Courtney at 2:30 pm followed by a screening of the documentary "Where Soldiers Come From" and Q&A starting at 5:30 pm.

WHERE SOLDIERS COME FROM is an intimate look at the young men who fight our wars and the families and town they come from. Returning to her hometown, director Heather Courtney gains extraordinary access, following these young men as they grow and change from reckless teenagers, to soldiers looking for bombs in Afghanistan, to 23-year-old veterans facing the struggles of returning home. The documentary looks beyond the guns and policies of an ongoing war to examine the war’s effect on the future of these young men, their parents and loved ones, and the whole community when young people go off to fight.

Heather Courtney has directed and produced several documentary films including Letters from the Other Side and

Los Trabajadores. With her current film, Where Soldiers Come From, she was a Sundance Edit and Story Lab fellow, and a 2009 recipient of the United States Artists fellowship. Her films have been funded by a Fulbright Fellowship, ITVS, the Sundance Documentary Fund, the Paul Robeson Fund, and the Texas Filmmakers Production Fund. She was recently named one of Film Independent's Top 10 Filmmakers to Watch. Letters from the Other Side was the Closing Night film at the Slamdance Film Festival in January 2006, screened at numerous festivals around the world, and was broadcast on over 60 PBS stations. Los Trabajadores won the Audience Award at SXSW and the International Documentary Association David Wolper award, and was broadcast nationally on the PBS series Independent Lens. She was a co-director on Roger Weisberg's Critical Condition, which aired nationally on POV in Fall 2008, and is a member of the acclaimed film distribution cooperative New Day Films. Prior to receiving her MFA in Film Production, she spent eight years writing and photographing for the United Nations and several refugee and immigrant rights organizations, including in the Rwandan refugee camps after the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Excerpted from the Center for Social Media site.

Films of Jay Rosenblatt Vol 1 now available in Media Services

Collage films that use educational movies from the 1950s and 1960s, newsreels, Hollywood clips, historical footage, home movies and other found footage to present the subject of the film. These films span the first decade of Rosenblatt’s cinematic career.

DVD 8994

Jay Rosenblatt site



The Smell of Burning Ants