From: Victoria Wolfe (email suppressed)
Date: Wed Aug 23 2006 - 13:31:39 PDT
agreed...my input was a digression, and a self-absorbed one at
that. apologies for going off topic.
the discussion thread hit a nerve. no attack intended on my part.
just a bit of vinegary venting, overdue at that. thanks for the
feedback
overall. see you all at the movies.
Victoria
On Wednesday, August 23, 2006, at 01:07 PM, owen wrote:
> This is a discussion list and we're discussing fees for screenings. I
> don't think there was
> any attacking going on. What's wrong with a little vinegar in the film
> can?
>
> owen
>
> On Aug 23, 2006, at 3:45 PM, david tetzlaff wrote:
>
>> Victoria:
>>
>> I know nothing of you, Susan or The Tank other than what I read on
>> Frameworks.
>>
>>> I disagree if your point is to accept that the programmers at the
>>> Tank
>>> just made
>>> an "aww shucks, we goofed" sort of mistake.
>>
>> I did not mean to belittle the problems you may have had. However,
>> not knowing anyone involved, I did want to make the point that bad
>> experiences not only come from people being venal jerks, but because
>> people over-commit, make over-optimistic promises etc. I do not mean
>> to excuse these things -- even volunteers have responsibilities --
>> but they do strike me as being on a different moral order than
>> out-and-out exploitation. Again, I have no idea what the specific
>> case was with the Tank when you had the problem there.
>>
>> As an outsider, I must say that there's a whiff of self-absorbtion in
>> your call to re-focus the discussion, which is about Susan's
>> screening series, back onto a problem you had with different people
>> putting up a differnt program at the same venue. You seem to be
>> offering the thesis that 'anyone who would associate with the Tank in
>> any way is corrupt.' Since you have only provided your own individual
>> case as evidence, such a global condemnation seems extreme. And if
>> the Tank does "stiff the artists and curators who work hard for them"
>> would that not put Susan in the ranks of the potential stiffees, and
>> thus should she not get support instead of grief?
>>
>> db:
>>
>> I agree that anyone who issues a call for work requiring an entry fee
>> should include in the call a brief explanation of why the fee is
>> being charged and where the money goes to. Maybe a small learning
>> moment can come out of this otherwise dark thread.
>>
>> I do not believe Susan claimed her life was hard at all. She merely
>> stated the fact that she is an unpaid volunteer. _I_ was the person
>> who said that programming a new work screening series in NYC without
>> adequate funding is hard. I certainly didn't claim that thusly
>> Susan's whole life was hard. I do think we ought to show some respect
>> to people who take on hard things.
>>
>> It is hardly 'crap' to analyse the material conditions necessary to
>> do screenings of different types in different locations. That fact
>> that you have booked shows out of your own pocket and/or by checking
>> out prints from Donnel doesn't mean you've 'been there', unless you
>> issued an open call for work and watched all the entries, be they
>> perfect, passable or pathetic.
>>
>> Moreover, I get very tired of the Frameworks attitude, "well I've
>> done such and such and so you should be able to as well." We all have
>> different talents, different resources. So maybe you are more heroic
>> than somebody else. It's bad form to dump on other volunteers because
>> they don't put in as much as you do, if that's the case (of which we
>> have no evidence).
>>
>> Since you don't know Susan from Adam, I wonder why you're rattling on
>> about irresponsible volunteers in the complete absence of any
>> compelling evidence that Susan has been irresponsible. In general
>> terms, I happen to agree with you: in the world of filmmaking once
>> you've made a commitment it should be sacrosanct whether you're
>> getting paid or not. If you engage with the artform you owe _it_ due
>> respect, not to mention the people you work with. But where's the
>> fire in this case?
>>
>> No doubt there is a lot of pent up frustration among film people, and
>> for good reason, but this whole thread seems to be full of
>> indiscriminate and un-aimed release of angst. Could we actually take
>> some time and figure out who the REAL bad guys are, who truly and
>> thoroughly deserves some righteous anger directed their way? Or would
>> that only reveal our own impotence in that we have no means to touch
>> the true villians or even make ourselves heard by them. So as humans
>> tend to do, the shit just rolls downhill and we vent on whoever is
>> available and just happens to look cross-eyed or something at the
>> wrong moment.
>>
>>
>> __________________________________________________________________
>> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.