Adjust Your Tracking is the podcast produced through the facilities of the Northwest Film Center Newsroom. The show is hosted by Joe von Appen and Erik McClanahan, and produced by Jessica Lyness and Laurel Degutis. Opinions expressed are that of the hosts, and not necessarily of the Northwest Film Center.
In this week’s episode, Joe and Erik discuss the work of excellent Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn. His films will screen at the Whitsell Auditorium as part of the Film Center’s new series, Driven: the Films of Nicolas Winding Refn.That series runs from March 8 – 18. Also, a news segment called Make it Stop is introduced and the hosts revisit their picks from last week’s Love It/Hate It.
New episodes of AYT are released every Thursday, so make sure to come back and check out what Joe and Erik are discussing every week. We’d love to hear your feedback in the comments section, or feel free to email adjustyourtracking@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/adjustyourtrack. You can download the podcast by right-clicking the link below and selecting ‘Save Link As…’ Once saved, the show can be played in iTunes or any other mp3 player. Or stream it on the embedded player.
WARNING: Explicit language is used in this podcast.
Hmmm…good trilogies? How bout the Toy Story Trilogy?
Also a good point. It’s a damn good trilogy.
Found footage: Try “Man Bites Dog” which is sort of a serial killer found footage movie, though the footage is supposedly shot by a small documentary film crew.
Oh hell yeah, dig Man Bites Dog. Need to re watch actually, been a while. Thanks Michael! We totally drop the ball on that one
In case anyone is dying to know whatever happened with Sarah Deming’s lawsuit regarding “Drive,” here you go…this is the most recent news story Google could find:
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120301/METRO02/203010460/1361/Judge-tosses-suit-alleging–Drive–is-anti-Semitic
You guys will be amused by this, but if you check out the primary marketing poster for Cloverfield and the primary marketing poster for Project X…they even aped the visual design of the thing (right down to the font, opacity, and placement of the catchphrase). Intentional? Who knows, but amusing in a very make-it-stop kind of way.
I gotta defend Chronicle a little bit though, I mean I’m conscious of the fact that I like it way too much because the overt homages to Akira and a million other things I love…but I actually felt quite the reverse about the way it descended from crafted self-shot views from the protagonist’s POV to the security footage at the end. In Chronicle, clearly there’s something going on with that character’s obsession with “getting” things on video as if he’s trying to prove something to himself (this is really happening) or others (the opening shots reveal the camera being used as a sort of defense against his abusive father). By the end, the same motif has been transformed into a sort of tool to comment on the degree to which something unbelievable or fantastic or mysterious becomes “real” to us, in twenty-first century terms, when we see it through a lens (whether it’s the news chopper or a ring of orbiting gravitationless iPads and phones). Was it all a bit cheesy? Perhaps, but I also felt like it had a clear purpose and wasn’t as inexcusable and silly as something like Cloverfield.
Or maybe I’m being too kind because I love Akira.
You guys only talk of films that rely on the ‘illusion’ of found footage employed for a imaginative cinematic effect for a fetish loving audience. But what of real experimental found footage films such as the work of Bruce Conner (Cosmic Ray), Chick Strand (Fever Dream), even Orson Wells’ F for Fake and many many others? No mention of these as any kind of precursor to today’s love for the kitsch of mock found footage films and technique.
I only draw the distinction because I think the thematic interest of your audience on this particular subject would enjoy a real discussion of these creative, independent and challenging films. The films you spend most of your time discussing are only part of a industry fueled artificial genre that has only co-opted in the most gross and commercial manner the real cinematic strangeness and awful beauty of substantial filmmakers of the found footage tradition. Granted your segment invites this, but why spend a good fifteen minutes picking off easy targets such as these and not get into a real, heady and provocative discussion of found footage films and their actual merit?
Anyway, I hope that doesn’t come off as being too harsh, I do really enjoy the show and appreciate you guys getting something like this off the ground. Keep at it!