For Memories' Sake

The last couple of months have been pretty darn busy, so blogging has taken a backseat. I've been working on a few different projects -- some writing, a DVD of two short films, and some tests with a new camera. And I got married -- eloped to Walden Pond, to be precise. It's been good to have some downtime from the blog, but now I'm back.

I'll have some more information about some of these projects of mine later this summer, and I'll be making some changes (hopefully good ones!) to Self-Reliant Film as well. But for now, I want to announce the launch of the For Memories' Sake website.

For Memories' Sake is a new half-hour documentary directed by my wife, Ashley Maynor. I'm the film's producer and, though we're still in the latter stages of post-production on it, I have to say I'm about as proud of this movie as anything I've been involved with.

In the coming days, as we complete the movie and prepare it for distribution, Ashley will be blogging on SRF about some of the things that were involved in making the film. Until then, I encourage you to become a "fan" of the movie on Facebook and check out the aforementioned website.

Wyoming Film Contest

I usually don't post film contest, and especially film festival, deadlines and guidelines. There are just too many out there to keep up with it all. But the Wyoming Film Contest got my attention. First, I like to promote regional cinema efforts. Secondly, the winner receives $25,000 towards producing a feature film (in Wyoming, 'natch). You don't have to be from Wyoming or live there to enter the contest, but your film must "reference Wyoming in some way."

Visit the Wyoming Film Office's blog for more details.

IndieMemphis: Quick Feet, Soft Hands, etc.

Quick Feet, Soft Hands will be screening at IndieMemphis this weekend. If you've not seen it and you're in the area, check it out on Sunday. Sadly, I won't be able to attend. Instead I've got to run to D.C. to do some final post-production work on the Quick Feet television version, which I need to deliver to ITVS by the end of the month.

In addition to missing all the great films that IM's new festival director Erik Jambor has selected, I'm also bummed that I'm missing out on an all-to-infrequent opportunity to feast on authentic Memphis BBQ.

If this year's IndieMemphis is any indication, Jambor is going to do great things for the festival as it chugs into its second decade. Hopefully I'll be able to be there with the next one. To all that attend -- enjoy!

Louis Massiah/Scribe Video Center

Louis Massiah, acclaimed documentarian and community video pioneer, visited Virginia Tech a few days ago. What an inspiration. Among the works Massiah screened was a segment from Power!, one episode from the Eyes on the Prize II series. In the segment, we are told the story of Carl B. Stokes, the first black mayor of a major American city. To say this video -- produced in the 80s, about a man that broke ground in the 60s -- was timely would be an understatement. If you want insight into this year's presidential election, including the racial (and racist) strategies being employed by opponents of Barack Obama, it's a must-see. (Search for it in a local library here.)

Still, even more impressive, was hearing Massiah discuss and screen work produced by Scribe Video Center. Massiah founded Scribe in 1982, and occupies a central place in Philadelphia media-making. If you don't know about it and you're interested in community storytelling (and empowerment) through video, dig into their website. Scribe has been around for 26 years, which is a phenomenal achievement, particularly considering the fate of so many other media arts organizations (from the Film Arts Foundation to AIVF). More importantly, they've changed lives through storytelling. Great stuff.

cicadas on PBS in New York, OR: How to Write a Press Release

Because of this website, I receive press releases on a daily basis from a multitude of PR firms. It's clear with many of them that the sender hasn't spent more than 5 seconds thinking about the audience for this website. Some of these are pretty unintentionally funny: My favorite media alert is probably the one about a re-recording of a jingle for canned beans by a Country music recording artist. But I digress. The point is, few notices get my attention. And even fewer do I end up writing about. When I receive a notice like the one quoted verbatim below, though, I try to act on it.

Why? Four reasons:

1) The thing being promoted sounds interesting.

2) The people that read this website might be interested in it too.

3) The thing being promoted sounds as if it could use my help as far as promotion goes. I tend to favor humble affairs, not stuff with a big advertising budget. (In case you hadn't noticed by now.)

4) The release sounds like it was written by an actual human being. You'd be surprised at how rare this is. Or maybe you wouldn't.

Oh yes, I'm sure Kat Candler's email breaks all sorts of "rules" about writing press releases. But I have noticed that there seems to be a direct correlation between points #1-3 and point #4. In the end, the result is that, Candler's email not only makes me want to see this movie -- it makes me want to tell others about it.

And in my book that's a press release that works.

cicadas 

cicadas Screening on PBS in New York Saturday, 7/19, 11:55pm Sunday, 7/20, 4:25am WNET, Reel 13 http://www.bside.com/films/cicadas

Long ago, I made this feature film called, cicadas. We shot it over the summer of 1999 in a tiny, tiny town called Bertram (population 835). We shot the film on a Canon XL1 back when mini-DV was brand spankin' new. Over 6 weeks, Thursdays through Sundays a cast and crew trucked out to the middle of nowhere Texas to make a story loosely based on a crush I had at age 16 on a skater punk kid.

The summer of 1999 was one of the best summers of my life. We had no expectations, no grandiose ideas of making it big ... we just wanted to make a feature film just to learn how to do it. And what came out of that little film was a family of friends, a super fun summer and a little movie that could.

The film went on to win some audience awards at festivals, get picked up for distribution and then dropped by distribution. And then picked up again for distribution.

If you have friends in New York who like to stay up crazy late or can record stuff to their VHS or DVD players, pass this along. It's fun to share your heart with people. Even if it's super rough around the edges and frayed along the hem line.

***

One other thing to note about press releases. For me, whether or not I write about something is also a matter of timing. Some days and weeks I'm slammed. Some days, a notice will come in and, if I've got a few spare minutes, I'll throw something up on the web. People that are paid to blog full time probably work differently, but that's how I roll.

As always, thanks for reading. And if you're a filmmaker, don't be afraid to see if I can cover your film. Just don't be hurt if I don't.

Flyover

I just learned about an interesting new blog called FlyOver. From the site:

FlyOver is a blog about art in the American Outback -- the people and places usually given less attention by those hopping from coast to coast. It's a way for arts journalists and artists outside the major American urban areas to celebrate, discuss, critique and share what they do. While it was established to continue a conversation begun at USC Annenberg's 2007 NEA Arts Journalism Institute in Theater and Musical Theater, we hope it will ultimately grow to serve a larger community of journalists, artists and institutions involved in the arts in America.

No, it may not cover issues related to filmmaking (at least not yet), but its attention to art and artmaking outside of the traditional hubs of the so-called "art world" is welcome.

Dialect Resources for Actors and Directors

The lead actress of the new film I'm working on is doing some dialect research. She shared this link with me, and I just have to share it here. It's the International Dialects of English Archive (IDEA). From their website, an explanation of the purpose:

The International Dialects of English Archive, IDEA, was created in 1997 as a repository of primary source recordings for actors and other artists in the performing arts. Its home is the Department of Theatre and Film at the University Of Kansas, in Lawrence, KS, USA; while associate editors form a global network. All recordings are in English, are of native speakers, and you will find both English language dialects and English spoken in the accents of other languages. The recordings are downloadable and playable for both PC and Macintosh computers.

It's an amazing audio archive of dialects from around the United States. Maybe this is old news to actors, but it's new to me, and quite exciting.

And, just in case you were wondering, we've been listening to Tennessee Eight.

Killer of Sheep

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep in my rave of Eagle Pennell's The Whole Shootin' Match. Funny timing: Yesterday, Dave Kehr had an all-too-short article in the NYT about the process of bringing to home video this legendary film that, in Burnett's words, "was never meant to be shown in public." I had known the film was going to be released to DVD at some point -- it's been rumoured for at least a few years (held up, as Kehr notes, by music licensing issues) -- so it's nice to know we won't have to wait much longer.

What I didn't know was that the film is getting a release at the IFC Center starting on Friday. It will also be playing in select cities throughout the summer. If you're anywhere near a screening, this is something you're not going to want to miss.

To learn more about the film, check out the new Killer of Sheep website that Milestone Films has launched. If you're a Burnett fan, make sure you click on the "Buy the DVD" tab -- it reveals some very exciting news.

SXSW: The Whole Shootin' Match, indeed

After a hellish 13 hour trip from Austin to Knoxville (don't get me started about the airline industry) I'm in Knoxville scouting locations for a film. Before I get completely absorbed with that work, here are some final notes on my last day or so at SXSW. Tuesday was my panel, Blogging about Film. Alison did a nice job moderating the conversation, and I really enjoyed sharing the microphone with Joel, Agnes, Mark, and Lance. All had very smart things to say, and we had different perspectives on the issues raised by Alison and the audience.

Many of the people in the audience -- a crowd of about 75 -- were bloggers themselves. At least some of them (Anthony Kaufman, Mike Tully, and AJ Schnack, to name just a few) could have just as easily been on the panel.

One of the more interesting discussions that arose concerned the question of whether bloggers are journalists or not. We also addressed some of the ethical issues that can arise when blogging about film, like whether you should review films by your friends.

After the panel, a few of the people mentioned above went to the Iron Works BBQ to continue talking film. I then caught 638 Ways to Kill Castro. I wasn't planning on seeing it, but it was a good way to stay out of the torrential rain. Castro is a fairly typical leftist documentary (e.g., interviews and archival footage, romantic longing for the revolutionary spirit of the 60s, damning evidence of US government's covert activities, etc.). It's all very upsetting, but the film offers little in the way of suggestions about what the audience should do with its anger. Even more troubling is the fact that the film also asks very few questions about Casto's own record on human rights. Of course, the question of whether such abuses make one worthy of assassination are never asked, in part, because the parties that want Castro dead don't care about his human rights abuses -- they simply want to exploit Cuba for their own ends. Still, in a film that takes as its subject the covert use of power and violence, it seems odd to neglect discussing Castro's own abuses in this regard. Despite these misgivings, I was, in the moment, oddly entertained by the film -- a combination of wry commentary and ironic archival footage give it a sense of humor (as well as a sense of the absurd), which is lacking in so many other earnest, liberal documentaries. My questions linger, though.

After the movie, I hung out with James Johnston and Amy McNutt. We talked politics, movies, and sugar substitutes over at a restaurant with some fine vegan deserts. Yum.

Finally, I made it over to Eagle Pennell's The Whole Shootin' Match. With all due respect to Frownland, Hannah Takes the Stairs, Quiet City, and the Zellner / Duplass shorts program, this was my favorite film of the festival. Shot in the late '70s, the film has been credited with inspiring Robert Redford to start the Sundance Institute. The film follows two blue collar Texas guys that can't seem to get their act together. One's single and an inventor, of sorts; the other is a married man who has trouble staying faithful to his spunky wife. It's more than just a very real, funny, sweet, and unsentimental masterpiece -- it ranks alongside Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep as one of the most vivid pieces of celluloid Americana I've ever seen.

The Whole Shootin' Match was a perfect last film to see, a reminder that the strong currents of do-it-yourself American independent filmmaking that were on display at SXSW flow from tributaries that go way back and have, for many of us, long since been lost or forgotten.

After I walked out of the theater, I ran back to the hotel in the rain, changed into dry clothes, and headed over to the closing night party, thanks to a ride from David Lowery.

I stayed for a while at the party, long enough to offer one more set of congratulations and compliments to the makers of all the films that I had liked, and long enough to talk face to face one more time with friends, many of whom I had met face to face for the first time in Austin.

The last conversation I had was with a very talented new friend in which we discussed collaborating on a project together. Nothing, and I mean nothing, can touch the promise and anticipation of making new work with people you respect. There are things that can't be put into a swag bag, listed in a festival catalog, or even projected on a screen -- and yet these intangibles of festival-going are why we attend in the first place.

As much as I was enjoying the party, it was time to call it a night. As if on cue, the rain had let up. So I walked back to my hotel in the dark with my mind buzzing, not with alcohol, but with something far better -- ideas for a new film.

A Long Weekend of Short Filmmaking at William & Mary: Pt. 2

Saturday morning at William & Mary began with Troy Davis giving Ashley and me a tour around the William & Mary's Swem Library Media Center. The Director of the Media Center, Troy was my host for the weekend and one of the primary organizers of the Media Center's Long Weekend of Short Filmmaking. The Media Center is several things in one -- an equipment training center, an equipment check-out center, a recording studio for music and podcasts. It's anything and everything that students want and Troy makes himself, and his assistants, available to students to teach them anything from iMovie to Logic Pro.

Troy has been the Director of the Media Center for a year and a half, and it's impressive what he's accomplished. On a technical level, he's helped secure some superb editing facilities (several Mac tower stations with Final Cut, Logic Pro, and the rest of the works, each in its own sound controlled environment). For a guy who describes himself as a "dabbler" when it comes to film, I was impressed with all the smart technology purchases he has been making, not to mention his ability to talk in depth about the subtle differences between various pieces of equipment they own.

Since there are, no doubt, places like this at universities across the country, the biggest accomplishment isn't the equipment and stations he's amassed -- it's the sense of community generates out from this media hub. A lot of that, no doubt, is due to Troy's vision for the Media Center as a place that is accessible and inviting (as opposed to exclusive and intimidating). The Media Center, in fact, is littered with Troy's self-desribed "propaganda" -- humorous, well-designed posters -- that invite students into the space and use the equipment.

After the tour, Troy and I recorded a podcast that covered making and teaching film. He had thought a lot about my work and had some great questions, which is really flattering. (The podcast will be posted at some point on Media Center site. I'll link to it when it's available.)

The podcast led into a "self-reliant filmmaking" workshop that I conducted with some of William & Mary's film students and faculty.

I began by discussing the work I do on this blog, including my reasons for starting it, and how it's transformed my own film practice. I then opened things up for discussion, which led to a wide-ranging conversation that covered everything from what video camera to purchase to some simple strategies for first-time documentarians. Ashley threw in some good advice during the conversation, to boot; I was happy she had joined me.

Our workshop group talked for nearly two hours, so Ashley and I had a quick break for lunch before I ran off to a screening of some of my own short films at the historic Kimball Theatre. The films looked good in this classy venue, I was happy with the turnout, and the questions the audience asked were, again, really good. (I even received some email from audience members after the screening thanking me for sharing my work.) There was a little reception in the theater lobby afterwards, and I enjoyed talking with some of the William & Mary faculty members that had come to the screening. That conversation led to a coffeehouse where Sharon Zuber, who teaches W&M's production courses, and I compared notes about how to teach film production.

We closed out the day by stopping by the premiere of the Cans Film Festival (pun intended), a student-organized screening of films produced at a variety of Virginia universities. (There weren't any entries from Virginia Tech -- maybe next year?) Ashley and I weren't able to stay for long -- I was beat and we had a long drive back in the morning. We did manage to catch one zombie flick before we left.

Before we left on Sunday morning, Troy treated us to breakfast at one of Williamsburg's many pancake houses. Ashley and I had seen a number of pancake houses on our drive in, and I suppose they reflect the fact that Williamsburg is a haven for retirees and a magnet for tourists (motto: "Where History Lives"). The three of us had one last movie-saturated conversation, and Troy told us about his next dream for the Media Center -- restoring an unused auditorium in the William & Mary library and making into a screening facility/microcinema.

As we drove out of town, past a few more pancake houses, I thought about a place like Wiliamsburg. Even with the occasional major production (like Malick's The New World) coming to town, it would still be surprising to see Williamsburg develop into the next Austin. Williamsburg's a town of 12,000 people, and a lot of the people are transient (whether they're tourists, college students, or retirees). That's a tough place to build a film culture. Of course these things don't only apply to Williamsburg. If this sounds like your town, too, well, so be it. It sounds like mine.

The thing is, something is happening in Williamsburg. Things like the Kimball Theatre, and the William & Mary Media Center are part of the puzzle. The "corner pieces" of that puzzle, though, are a dedicated group of people with vision, passion, and resourcefulness. That's the real lifeblood of regional filmmaking and film culture. Some places don't have this, or have enough of it. Luckily, for Williamsburg, it has Troy Davis, Sharon Zuber, Arthur Knight (coordinator of Film Studies at W&M), and a host of student filmmakers. Something tells me that their numbers will only continue to grow.

A Long Weekend of Short Filmmaking at William & Mary: Pt. 1

The College of William & Mary brought me to Williamsburg, Virginia this weekend to participate in a "long weekend of short filmmaking." It's been a busy, and rewarding, weekend. Friday, after arriving to town, I was a judge at 24Speed, William & Mary's variation on those twenty-four hour filmmaking contests that have grown in popularity throughout the country.

In this case, eight teams of six filmmakers each were provided the same line of dialogue (a line from one of last year's videos: "I'm not taking you out, I'm taking you down") and a 1920s yearbook from the college's archives, which they had to use as a prop. After a drawing in which they received two film genres at random each team had to choose one genre in which to work. They then had 24 hours to produce a three-to-five minute video.

By the time of the screening the place was packed. Each of the eight videos had their charms and their share of cleverness. Of course, all of them had their rough spots, too -- what video produced in 24 hours wouldn't? It's funny, though, how those "rough spots" (some out of sync dialogue, say, or let's-roll-with-the-first-and-only-take-performances) become charming in and of themselves when you consider the context of how quickly these things were produced.

After watching all the videos, the two other judges and I had a healthy debate about the merits of the eight videos. Every video, to its credit, managed to produce at least a handful of laughs, jolts, or cringes.

Speaking only for myself, as a judge I was looking for videos that had adequate craft, for starters. Beyond that, though, I wasn't necessarily looking for the best shot or best edited video. I was looking for videos that gave me a fresh take on the genre instead of merely rehashing it. That might sound like a tall order, but there were more than a couple that did this.

Ultimately, after forty-five minutes, the other two judges and I had settled on the prize winners. The winner was a mockumentary that used consistently smart deep-focus cinematography to execute its jokes with a lot of subtlety; an honorable mention was awarded to some ambitious students that came this close to nailing their chosen genre, the musical. That's right, in 24 hours they wrote, scored, shot and edited a musical. It was rough around the edges, sure, but it definitely had me eager to see what these guys could accomplish in 48 hours, and that's worth something.

***

That night, after the screening was over, I realized that I had experienced a change of heart about competitions like 24Speed. In the past, to be perfectly frank, I've had some reservations about the benefits of such competitions. I guess I feared that the 24 hour time constraint reinforced bad habits (mainly, thinking that making a film is something you can rush through) and emphasized competition over collaboration. I see, now, that I've been wrong.

First, the competitive nature (at least at this one) was entirely overshadowed by the fun everyone was having. That was great to see. Competition can push people to do better work, even (especially?) with art. You just can't take it too seriously.

Secondly, and even more importantly, I see now that what these competitions can do is remind us that there are times when it's better to make something as quickly as possible just to do it.

More than anything else, watching these videos (and meeting the students that produced them so quickly) I was reminded of the collaborations I have undertaken in the past with friends on videos for Termite TV. To an outsider, such projects might seem "insignificant," but I always learned something by making them, even if the final product sometimes ended up being kinda rough.

This afternoon, browsing Termite TV's website, I ran across a quote from Manny Farber's "White Elephant Art vs Termite Art" essay, which reads as a kind of found poem for what I saw at 24Speed: a peculiar fact about termite-tapeworm-fungus-moss art is that it moves always forward, eating its own boundaries, and likely as not, leaves nothing in its path but evidence of eager, industrious, unkempt activities

***

Part 2 of W&M's Long Weekend of Short Filmmaking coming soon...

ADDENDUM:All of the entries for the contest are now online for viewing by the general public.

Lost in Light Launches

Jennifer Proctor and Aaron Valdez's Lost in Light project website has officially launched. If you missed my post about it in October, the project is "devoted to preserving, archiving, and making available 8mm and Super 8 films that are otherwise being lost to time." Now that the project has begun, Jennifer and Aaron are ready to start accepting Super 8 and 8mm films for free transfer to video and inclusion on their videoblog. They are also accepting creative works made in Super 8 and 8mm for posting to the site.

Click here to find out more about having your Super-8 and "regular" 8mm movies transferred to video for free. The transfers they're offering are flickerless, and they look good. Check out their first post to see a sample.

If you're interested in submitting creative work, click here.

Lost in Light

A few weeks ago, in an effort to show my students some of the more interesting film and video work being created for the web I discovered Have Money Will Vlog. It's an ingenious site that helps media artists raise funds to produce their web-distributed videos and films. The project budgets are in the $2000 - $3000 range, and the donations are usually small -- $10, $20, and so on. Of course, that money adds up when you consider all the people online. You get what you pay for, too. The work you'll find on HMWV is about, oh, a zillion times better than anything you'll see on YouTube or Google Video. (Unless, of course, you have some predilection for watching pre-teens doing karaoke in front of their webcams.)

Anyway, if you've not yet run across Have Money Will Vlog, now is a particularly good time to check out the site (and to dig in your pocket for some loose change) because funds are currently being raised for a project by Jennifer Proctor and Aaron Valdez, two Iowa City filmmakers. The project is called Lost in Light and, in Jennifer's words (via email) the project is "devoted to preserving, archiving, and making available 8mm and Super 8 films that are otherwise being lost to time."

In fact, as they state on the Lost in Light websites (HMWV site, official site), "we will provide free Super 8 and 8mm to video transfers to anyone who asks, in exchange for posting their video to the Lost in Light site and on the Internet Archive with their choice of Creative Commons licenses. In addition, Lost in Light will include articles and features by members of the filmmaking and film preservation communities, video tutorials for making 8mm films, as well as creative work, all with the goal of preserving and championing this important film format."

So, send them your Super-8 and 8mm films. And send them some $ while you're at it.

Home Movie Day (Richmond Edition)

The Richmond edition of Home Movie Day, which was run by the Richmond Moving Image Co-op, was great fun. There was a nice turnout and everyone attending (myself included) learned some good tips about preserving their small gauge films. For Ashley's complete write-up, including an explanation of what James Parrish of RMIC is explaining to her, click on the photo.

 

 

Small Gauge Madness: Home Movie Day

August 12 is Home Movie Day. As part of the festivities, small-gauge film-related events will be held in 27 states and 6 countries this year. This is the first I've heard of it, but apparently Home Movie Day is in its fourth year. Here's some information from the website:

Home Movie Day was started in 2002 by a group of film archivists concerned about what would happen to all the home movies shot on film during the 20th century....

The Home Movie Day founders envisioned a worldwide celebration of these amateur films, during which people in cities and towns all over would get to meet local film archivists, find out about the long-term benefits of film versus video and digital media, and—most importantly—get to watch those old family films! Because they are local events, Home Movie Day screenings can focus on family and community histories in a meaningful way. They are also an education and outreach opportunity for local archivists, who can share information about proper storage and care for personal films, and how to make plans for their future.

Great stuff. If you happen to go to one of the events, post a comment and let us know how it went. My ladyfriend and I are hoping to attend the one in Richmond.

On a related note, if you've got a lot of 8mm or Super-8 movies that you need to have transferred to video, check back tomorrow.

No Time to Waste: 48-Hour PSA Project

A while back I wrote about a 48 hour documentary project, now along comes a 48-hour PSA project that is the brainchild of Asian Arts Initiative Executive Director Gayle Isa and Sara Zia Ebrahimi, who shared some thoughts on this site about film co-ops. Because of the meetings, the event is largely Philadelphia-based, but if you're interested in participating you might send them an email (info below) to inquire if you can play along. (They're planning on uploading to BlipTV, after all.)

One of the more interesting aspects of this 48-hour project is that, as far as I can tell, it's non-competitive. While I'm sure the collective nature of the project will push everyone to do their best work (wanting to "top" each other, etc.) the emphasis, in the end, is on the making work and the collective spirit that comes from participation in such a thing. A small change, but a big difference that is entirely appropriate for a project dealing with this subject matter.

No Time to Waste The 48-hour PSA Project Confronting War

This is a call out to local artists, activists, filmmakers, musicians, poets, carpenters, office workers, janitors—anyone! who is frustrated with any of the wars this country is engaged in, at home or abroad, and wants to send a message to the world about it—a digital message. The 48-hour PSA Project will bring together people in the Philadelphia area to create 30-60 second public service announcements against war within a 48-hour period. At the end of the 48 hours the videos will be posted on the Internet and available for viewing by millions of people worldwide. Join us for a digital mobilization where instead of posters and signs our digital media conveys our message!

How it works:

Individuals will group together in "pods" of 4-8 people. Each pod should have at least one person who fits each of these specifications:

    access to a video camera 

    access to editing software such as Final Cut Pro or iMovie and working knowledge of editing.

    We also recommend selecting roles for each person in your group based on your needs (camera operator, script writer, narrator, researcher, etc.) before the 48-hour period begins.

All pods will meet up on Saturday September 9th in the morning for a brief introduction to the project. They will each have 48 hours to come up with a concept, shoot it, edit it, and compress it for web uploading. A public event and screening of all the PSAs will occur on Monday evening, September 11th. The PSAs will also eventually be compiled onto a DVD that will be available for distribution.

How to enter: Please email the "Group Application" form below to psas_against_war@hotmail.com. You will receive a confirmation email as well as more detailed information on the project and the 48-hour weekend.

If you are interested in participating but don't have enough other people to group with, please email the "Request to Join a Group" form below to psas_against_war@hotmail.com. We will put you in contact with others so that you can all participate!

**Group applications are due by Monday September 3rd.**

How much does it cost? $5 per individual, and two days of your time. Money goes toward breakfast Saturday morning, a miniDV tape, and administrative expenses.

When and where? Participants will meet up on Saturday, September 9th at 9:30am at the Asian Arts Initiative, 1315 Cherry Street, 2nd floor. The project ends at 9:30am on September 11th. More details will be given once your group has registered.