What’s that saying? It’s better to be lucky than good. But being lucky is one thing, you then have to recognize what you stepped in. I’m not always lucky, but one day on my shoot in California’s White Mountains . . … Continued
Dear Filmmaker, Are you interviewing experts who are critical of your subjects’ work? If yes, who? If no, why not? N.E. Dear.N.E. This is an excellent question. I am not interviewing experts. I decided early on that though the projects … Continued
I’m reposting Kate Hill Cantrill’s guest stint because her short story collection, Walk Back from Monkey School, is NOW AVAILABLE, and that’s how we treat our guest bloggers here at A Life’s Work headquarters. Kate Hill Cantrill’s writing has appeared in … Continued
Robert Darden’s excellent book, People Get Ready: A New History of Black Gospel Music, is one of those books that educates and entertains. If you’re interested at all in gospel music or American roots music, this is a must read. … Continued
Over on the Filmmaker Magazine web site you can find an interview I conducted with documentary filmmaker Kathy Leichter. Kathy’s film, Here One Day, was born out of grief, as was A Life’s Work. Though our inspiration may have been the same, we … Continued
When is the best time to plant a tree? Twenty years ago. The second best time? Today. – Chinese proverb This proverb could easily have accompanied this photo.
Back in the summer of 2010, when the A Life’s Work blog was just a mere baby blog, a reader took advantage of the Ask the Filmmaker feature to ask about crowdfunding: Dear Filmmaker, Have you considered using Kickstarter for A … Continued
The Bristlecone Pine Tree [youtube]http://youtu.be/5cHwkHRaJTg[/youtube] Excuse Me While I Go Schizo I came across this shot while editing a sequence on bristlecone pine trees and the Milarch’s successful cloning of the Methuselah tree and I immediately got into an argument with … Continued
I wrote a post about summing up A Life’s Work in one word: legacy. But there is another word that runs a close second: wonder. The work Robert Darden, Paolo Soleri, Jill Tarter, and David and Jared Milarch do keeps them … Continued
So having thought long and hard about what makes Gimme Shelter such a great film, this led me to thinking about another Maysles film, Grey Gardens, and what makes that so exceptional. I’ve written about Grey Gardens here and on … Continued