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Showing posts with the label development

CASE STUDY: The Fidel Castro Tapes

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I normally reach out to filmmakers and producers when I write a case study but it is a long and involved process of outreach and interviewing and then creating the case study for Film Strategy. Lately, I have been busy with my legal work but I am also developing a documentary based on archival footage and photography and so I have been doing my research on all fronts. Lo and behold, I ran across this case study on a PBS documentary about Fidel Castro based on archival footage, The Fidel Castro Tapes , at Peter Hamilton's great website: www.documentarytelevision.com . Because I found it so useful, I felt I had to share it.  We wondered about the challenges of creating an archive-based film about an 88-year old Spanish-speaking personality who can be dangerously controversial, and who is the founding father of a government whose people are still blockaded by the US.   Castro ‘ s producer Tom Jennings earned a Peabody with the Smithsonian Channel for  MLK: The Assassination

SCRIPT TO SCREEN: Raging Bull

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Raging Bull  |  Martin Scorcese  | 1980 | USA | Format: 35mm  | 129 min Polish poster for Raging Bull I just saw Raging Bull the other day. For the first time.   That would be near heresy for a filmmaker to say but I just wasn't interested for a long time.  And it wasn't because I dislike DeNiro or Scorcese or boxing.  It was simply I didn't like how Sugar Ray Robinson (my favorite boxer of all time) was depicted.  In the stills I saw of the movie, Sugar Ray looks scrawny, unkempt and plain wack; not an image befitting the man, the legend who was so good they had to create the phrase "greatest pound-for-pound" to describe how good he was across the board and in comparison to everyone from flyweights to heavyweights. I mean see for yourself... The "real" Sugar Ray The "Raging Bull" Sugar Ray I know, I know... it's such a minor quibble but I'm such a major Sugar Ray fan.  Anyway, I was always curious to see it and I fin