Two years on.
It’s been two years since the movie premiered at The Anthology Film Archives on February 23, 2009. Seems like ages ago.
Someone once described the movie to me as a snapshot of a particular moment in time. I think he was right. I wonder if now, in 2011, the movie has the same “in-the-moment” feeling that it did then (dated references to Lost and Quantum of Solace aside).
In honor of our anniversary, I wanted to repost a review by Tom Russell from September 2009. You remember in english class, when you’d read a book and the teacher would dissect and read into it and attribute intention to every last punctuation mark? I always figured that while some stuff is surely conscious and intentional on the part of the author, a lot is projected on to the work by readers after the fact. But Russell’s close analysis of The Lionshare is spot on with every point. He caught it all. He picked up on all the threads that I pained to pull together to make my point, and he got the point exactly. Which tells me something important about the movie. If The Lionshare was able to communicate all that to someone whom I’ve never met, who had no pre-knowledge of the movie whatsoever, then I’m confident saying that my first serious filmmaking effort was a complete success. Do give it a read if you have a few minutes: http://turtleneckfilms.blogspot.com/2009/09/josh-bernhards-lionshare.html
My current project is a series called Pioneer One, made with a lot of the same people who worked on Lionshare with me. It’s a completely different kind of story, and it’s much more ambitious. And The Lionshare was the preface to everything we’re working on now. I’m immensely proud of that.
Couple tid-bits: YouTube has recently lifted the length restrictions for a lot of accounts, including mine, so I’m planning to upload the full movie in the near future. I’d hoped to have done it by now but I haven’t been able to get to the full-rez version yet.
And lastly, there’s a very real possibility that a Lionshare series might be coming down the pipe pike. Stay tuned…
-Josh
Lionshare on DVD Talk, plus contest info
I recently was the guest on Cody Clarke’s DVD Talk to promote the movie. Check it out.
To enter a contest to win a free copy of The Lionshare signed by Josh Bernhard and Cody Clarke, send an email with a minimum of 100 words, on any subject, to dvd@lionsharemovie.com with the subject DVD Contest. Talk about anything you like as long as it’s at least 100 words. Entry deadline is March 15. The winning essay will be read on the next episode of DVD Talk with Cody Clarke.
‘The Lionshare’ is academic
My good friend Dan is currently in a screenwriting program at a university in Scotland. One of his classes has to do with copyright issues and file sharing (first off, how cool is that?). Last night, he sent me the following:
So in class we watched Steal This Film, a presentation from TOM by Larry Lessig called “Laws That Choke Creativity” (It’s really amazing, check it out if you haven’t seen it. It’s available here among other places.), talked about the Girl Talk documentary, RIP: A Remix Manifesto, but didn’t watch it, and of course we talked a LOT about file sharing. After the break (it’s a 3 hour class) he showed us this webpage called http://vodo.net. And as you know, SHIT! There’s The Lionshare on the mainpage on the giant screen at the front of my class. And my professor starts talking about the web site and how this is the first feature film that they’ve hosted. I told the class that the film is actually by a good friend of mine, how we graduated from the same program, told them a little bit about the film without giving too much away, and encouraged them to watch it. And remember, there it is on the giant screen in the front of the room. The coincidence was insane.
Actually I cheated just slightly with my storytelling. But don’t worry, that makes it even better. During the break (before he showed what is currently, basically a page advertising your movie to my screenwriting class), of course having a personal and professional interest in all this copyright stuff I spoke with the professor and mentioned the band Negativland because of all of their famous and infamous legal dealings on the subject. And then, of course, I mentioned The Lionshare. The craziest bit was that as soon as I mention “this film you should check out that was made by a good friend of mine.” He goes, “Oh yeah. I just downloaded that last night. I’m going to talk about the web site that’s hosting it after the break.” Insane. So minor though it was, The Lionshare was a part of the copyright and file sharing discussion during a lecture in one of my classes on my screenwriting course. In Scotland. It made my day actually.
Made my day too! It’s certainly quite a coincidence that a person I know very well happened to go to Scotland and happened to join this program and happened to take that class that happened to be taught by that professor. Sometimes I wonder…
Additionally, Andrew Currie, who wrote that great review on Open Attitude, followed up with another article titled Instead of “making it,” just make art. It’s generated an interesting discussion on his Facebook page. Here’s an excerpt from the original post where he mentions The Lionshare:
Will art suffer from a dearth of professional artists? I don’t think so — for example, The Lionshare is far more compelling a film than anything I’ve seen from Hollywood so far this year. It may well be that such grand projects are undertaken with the ultimate goal of “making it”, but what if artists were to free themselves of this antiquated notion — really just a blip of the 20th century — and concentrate instead on just making art?
VODO creator namedrops ‘Lionshare’ at Slamdance panel
Jamie King, the force behind the VODO distribution platform that released the movie last month, was part of a panel discussion at Slamdance yesterday about the future of film distribution. While he was speaking, he mentioned The Lionshare’s downloads on the filesharing networks equaled 8 terabytes. It was quoted on the blog of Filmmaker Magazine:
Discussing a recent VODO film, Lion’s Share, King did point to one useful statistic. He said the film’s downloads on the filesharing networks totalled eight terabytes. “The value of that is in the thousands of dollars,” he said, “and that bandwidth cost has been shared by our community. It points to a future when the distinction between filmmaker, producer and distributor has been broken down.” In this future, he continued, “We will need to incentivize people to promote our films.”
Okay, so, they called it ‘Lion’s Share’ but that’s still awesome. Check out their full report on the panel here.
‘Lionshare’ makes best-of list
Filmmaker and critic Tom Russell, whose review I linked to a while back, has made a list of his favorite films of the past decade. The Lionshare is on that list:
A multifaceted examination of how culture is created and disseminated and notions of ownership, all packed into a tight and sprightly sixty-five minutes. Entertaining, maturely stylish, ambitious without ever overreaching. The filmmaker has made the film available for free. It’s worth your time.
This is quite an honor to bestow upon our little film. Thanks to Tom and everyone else who has supported it.
Charm Face Music Video
Charm Face’s album release party was awesome, as was their Lionshare-tie-in video. Check it out:
Music Video Premiere
Bracey Smith and the band he played with in the movie went on to form a band called Charm Face. They’ve been achieving a lot of success and tomorrow night is the release party for their first album Hup. Before they play they will also premiere the Lionshare-inspired music video for “Comfort Food,” a song featured at the end of the movie. Bracey had a great concept that results in the video being what I consider an unofficial ’sequel’ to The Lionshare, even further blurring the line between reality and the world of the movie.
Here’s a quick behind the scenes video Bracey put together of the shoot:
So check out their free show tomorrow night and get there early to see the premiere of the video!
Friday, October 9
8:00 pm
Blarney Stone, 2nd floor
410 8th Ave
New York, NY
http://www.facebook.com/charmfacemusic#/event.php?eid=138049056445&index=1
Friend Me
Some time ago we acquired our ‘vanity url’ for our Facebook fan page. In keeping with the themes of connectivity in the movie as well as the digital grassroots-ness philosophy behind the making of the film, I’ve been trying to create a strong ‘brand’ presence by registering a ‘lionsharemovie’ account on as many social networking sites as possible. This includes sites for which networking is not its primary function, which is the reasoning behind featuring our Flickr and YouTube accounts on the ‘Stills’ and ‘Clips’ pages of the site rather than hosting them on our own server.
Anyway, I just wanted a reason to post this nifty badge for our Facebook page:
Also, the DVD should be available for purchase by this time next week.
Follow lionsharemovie on Twitter
After reading an article about the virtues of multiple Twitter accounts, I decided to create a Lionshare-specific account.
Follow us for 140-character insights and news! Or just look over at the sidebar. Either works.
