Friends & Artists

Digital Convergence Podcast — Shout Out About “Breaking Into TV News”

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Digital Convergence Podcast — Shout Out About “Breaking Into TV News”

A few weeks ago I posted about walking my dogs and listening to my favorite podcast — The Digital Convergence Podcast, about DSLR cameras and digital editing — and hearing the host Carl Olson read an e-mail that I’d sent and put a plug in for Naked Filmmaking: How To Make A Feature-Length Film – Without A Crew – For $10,000 Or Less. This afternoon I was driving on assignment for KCRA and listening to this week’s podcast — Episode #68 — when half-way through it Carl Olson made a reference to the new book Breaking Into TV News...

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Jimmy Ennett – Australian Naked Filmmaker

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Jimmy Ennett – Australian Naked Filmmaker

A few months ago I was reviewing my Youtube account and saw a mile of comments left on my videos. A few of them were from a young filmmaker in Australia named Jimmy Ennett who said that he was a one-man filmmaker, too, and that he’d even bought my book Naked Filmmaking. This was very personally uplifting for me to learn that not only was Naked Filmmaking reaching beyond U.S. borders, but that it was also spreading out into new hemispheres. I quickly sent this young compatriot a thank you e-mail and we began corresponding. I wanted to know...

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Matthew Modine – KCRA Common Ground Profile – Part 2 of 3

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Matthew Modine – KCRA Common Ground Profile – Part 2 of 3

Every now and then in the business of TV news you get a chance to meet and do a story on someone who’s work you admire and who had been a part of something historic. Matthew Modine is an actor and filmmaker who has been working in films for almost the same length of time that I’ve been working in TV news. His most well-known work is quite possibly in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. It was a film an an experience that left a lasting impression on Modine. Kubrick’s independent style in filmmaking went much deeper than in...

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Russ Meyer’s Final Interview

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Russ Meyer’s Final Interview

RUSS MEYER was a dear friend for twenty years. This interview with Russ was taped n Friday evening, 11-20-1990. This is the last interview he gave before his health started to falter. I’ve posted this raw, unedited footage so people can see the warm, honest artist and man at the top of his game. I have also included the footage I shot in his home, a museum to himself that he built, for the benefit of his friends and fans. The world knew of him as “The King of the Nudies,” a title he enjoyed all the way to...

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Anthony D’Juan In Print

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Anthony D’Juan In Print

Last Tuesday I attended Anthony D’Juan’s announcement party for his first novel Deconstructed. But earlier that day I’d gone onto CreateSpace.com and ordered my copy. The site said I’d receive my copy within three weeks. This afternoon I was on the sofa in the front room checking e-mail when there was a knock on the door. Through the window I saw the mailman heading away down the sidewalk. I went outside to find a package from CreateSpace on the front step. Slicing open up the box I took out Anthony’s novel, after only less than a week after ordering....

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Read Anthony D’Juan’s “Deconstructed”

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Read Anthony D’Juan’s “Deconstructed”

Anthony D’Juan – actor, playwright, screenwriter, blogger, poet – has now added “published novelist” to his profile. Last night at INK Eats & Drinks in Midtown was the presentation party for Anthony’s first novel Deconstructed. It’s a slim, carefully constructed multi-character drama of people living in a midtown urban area and their lives intersecting and one man’s life becoming increasingly disconnected, both from himself and from reality.  I’ve read the development of the novel through it’s various drafts and feel that Anthony has a very strong and original voice. His stories unfold like life: you never know how or...

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