Just got back from a sojourn to the land of warm and sunny, talking movies with coworkers from the AMIA conference committee (www.amianet.org). Though shackled to the worktable for hours at a stretch by our genial taskmasters, we did manage to take in some super shorts during downtime, checking in with a hilarious Canadian spoof known as "The Wood Spider" from the "Hinterland Who's Who" serious-toned 1960's nature shorts (not recommended for those under 18 or without a sense of humor- you've been warned!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx8yXUecdiw

We also viewed some very serious short works by Jeff Consiglio- a master at getting a story told with high production values in under 3 minutes flat. I'm including some of these works in workshops right now to demonstrate the power of the supershort format. Ask me about "Alive Again" sometime..

Robert Rodriguez, boy-wonder hollywood feeding-frenzy uberwinner some years back with his low-budget "El Mariachi", got a big assist in opening up the studios' cash hoses by circulating his festival-winning short called "Bedhead." Gotta understand, this was shot on 16mm, with no sync sound, and despite crude (tho effective) editing, the story helped carried the day for the man in the end, to the tune of a cool million or so in various deals when he signed with Columbia. Rodri says it's all about the making- if he hadn't had the passion to force himself to use his VHS tools to crank out short after short, he wouldn't have had the chops to do ANYTHING worthwhile when he stepped up to 16mm. The universe keeps sending the message back at us- gotta write, shoot, edit, and then rinse & repeat. Or to say it another, more venerable way, chop wood, carry water, every day. Or as Dr. Frank N. Furter likes to sing, "Don't Dream it, Be it."

So on the plane ride back (10 hours in the air), I managed to get the words out for my ThrowDown13 movie. Now I just need a visual idea..