Directors Notes Podcast

There are two types of podcasts I don't enjoy:

1. The guy in his basement ranting and rambling into low-quality computer mike
2 The over-developed, high on fluff, low on content, podcast-wanna-be-radio show.

Thankfully, Directors Notes is neither of these, with interesting, well produced content without a lot of beating around the bush.

Every week, MarBelle posts an audio interview with an independent director (mp3), a large quicktime clip from his or her film, and sometimes the script, storyboards and moodboards. The films range from feature length documentaries to 30 second animated shorts with everything in between. The interviews themselves are engaging and to-the-point, with guests from all over the world who approach film-making from many different backgrounds. The questions in the interviews are researched and specific, making for a conversation both interesting and informative. For someone who is trying to learn film-making on their own, Directors Notes is a godsend. The 85 odd archived shows are well worth downloading.

Flannery O'Conner's cinematic prose

Look at this excerpt from Flannery O'Conner's short story The Life You Save May Be Your Own:

Mr. Shiftlet's eye in the darkness was focused on a part of the automobile bumper that glittered in the distance. "Lady," he said, jerking his short arm up as if he could point with it to her house and yard and pump, "there ain't a broken thing on this plantation that I couldn't fix for you, one‑arm jackleg or not. I'm a man," he said with a sullen dignity, "even if I ain't a whole one. I got," he said, tapping his knuckles on the floor to emphasize the immensity of what he was going to say, "a moral intelligence!" and his face pierced out of the darkness into a shaft of doorlight and he stared at her as if he were astonished himself at this impossible truth.

Isn't that very filmic? It may just be by obsession with film, but it seems like that's a heck of a lot of acting, directing and cinematography for a paragraph, not to mention amazing writing.

Perhaps the Brothers Coen could take on one of her stories? Their new film (an adaptation of a novel by another writer of 'southern gothic'), No Country for Old Men, looks amazing.

P.S. I listened to the O'Conner story today on Miette's excellent Bedtime Stories podcast. Kind of strange listening to rednecks read with an English accent, but she's an excellent reader.