From: DOMINIC ANGERAME (email suppressed)
Date: Wed Nov 26 2008 - 12:01:23 PST
Well Steve....you have opened a can of worms.....To correct some things
that Polta states about Canyon Cinema. When Steve worked here it was
more than 8 years ago...our Board is not passive at all...It has
raised quite a bit of capital from private donations that has helped us
stay in business...The Board is in the process of re vamping the
website and creating a non profit organization for various purposes we
have actively sought out international rentals, I have traveled and
presented Canyon programs at festival such at the Nashville
International FF, Big Muddy Film Festival, New Orleans Film
Festival, Havana Film Festival and in the future to Japan and other
places...too many to list here.
Steve...the phone no longer rings...it is all email....I appreciated
your work on the Board here and the two years as an
employee.....however, many things have changed since you have
left.....Canyon actively rents continuos projection of dvds to Museums
and Galleries...
I wish you would not speak for Canyon Cinema since you have not been
actively involved for more than four years and have no idea of what is
keeping us alive.... Instead you should be speaking for the
Cinematheque that still pays its filmmakers a pittance (I do not think
the honorarium has gone up in more that 15 years) for showing films to
a nearly empty venue....and yet has a staff of three people.
Dominic Angerame
Director, Canyon Cinema
--- On Wed, 11/26/08, Steve Polta <email suppressed> wrote:
From: Steve Polta <email suppressed>
Subject: Re: Experimental films showing at various Universities
To: email suppressed
Date: Wednesday, November 26, 2008, 10:51 AM
Not to start a big fight or anything but perhaps it would behoove the
distribution coops to address this more directly than by posting to a discussion
board. Yes——the material conditions are changing, and loyal faculty are
retiring. But perhaps it would be worth the coops developing outreach strategies
by which their collections could be "sold" to institutions. To play
devil's advocate here, let's ponder: "Why are these films
important?" "Why *should* instructors show these films to their
classes?" "Who really cares?" Many of us on the list have
opinions on these questions, but these opinions are not penetrating into the
classrooms (other than obliquely). What can a distributor do to infiltrate these
institutions? Creation of study guides? Convincing creation and distribution of
information (i.e. promotional material) on collections? Assembly of rental
packages and possible related reader-type material? These are just ideas. The
co-ops' business
model (from what I can tell, and I worked at Canyon for three years and was on
their board for——was it four?) is, by its nature, passive——essentially a
wait-for-the-phone-to-ring type deal, virtually no outreach or promotion of
collections. You can bet that such operations as text book distributors,
mainstream video distributors, and the more active "niche"
distributors (such as Newsreel and Women Make Movies) work very hard to create
"sales tools," make phone calls and otherwise talk up the
educational/cultural value of their holdings in an effort to "drive
business". While I realize the cultural forces "against us" are
great, in my opinion, such strategies would be something for the co-ops to
consider...
Steve Polta
--- On Tue, 11/25/08, DOMINIC ANGERAME <email suppressed>
wrote:
> From: DOMINIC ANGERAME <email suppressed>
> Subject: Experimental films showing at various Universities
> To: email suppressed
> Date: Tuesday, November 25, 2008, 1:31 PM
> I originally address to Gene Youngblood, however thought I
> would put this out there to the entire list.
>
>
>
> Dear Gene,
>
>
>
> I know that you have retired, however, I was curious if
> the
> person who replaced you had any experimental film
> inclinations. Canyon
> no longer receives any rental requests from the College of
> Santa Fe and
> it was, until your retirement, one of our biggest
> renters, The
> unfortunate situation appears that a lot of experiment film
> classes or
> programs are mostly one person driven. Once that person
> retires the
> replacement is no longer interested in experimental cinema.
> I first
> noticed this when Dick Myers retired from Kent State. He
> use to rent at
> least $1500 a year for film screenings. Canyon has not
> received one
> film rental request since he left. The same is true for
> Occidental
> College when Chick Strand left, all rentals stopped. Stan
> Brakhage use
> to rental at least $5000 worth of experimental films from
> Canyon a
> year....now the requests from UCB have dwindled down
> considerably. This
> is the same for the San Francisco Art Institute, School of
> the Art of
> Chicago, University of Oklahoma and many more places too
> numerous to
> list here.
>
>
>
> What I might suggest to those on the list that are still
> teaching and
> plan to retire to try and have a say about the replacement
> and their
> interest in experimental cinema. It would certainly help
> the field stay
> alive. I realize that often times teachers have no say in
> who their
> replacement will be.
>
>
>
> Thanks
>
>
>
> Dominic Angerame
>
> Exec. Director, Canyon Cinema
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> 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>.