Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

Hustwit’s OBJECTIFIED to premiere at SxSW

Plexifilm staffer Gary Hustwit is finishing a new documentary, OBJECTIFIED, a follow-up of sorts to his 2007 graphic design film HELVETICA. OBJECTIFIED about our relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them. It’s a look at the creativity at work behind everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets. It’s about industrial designers, the people who re-examine, re-evaluate and re-invent our manufactured environment on a daily basis. It’s also about personal expression, identity, consumerism, and sustainability.

OBJECTIFIED will have its World Premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival March 13-21, followed by a global screening tour and DVD release later this year. See the official OBJECTIFIED website for updates.

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Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

SW30 DVD to be released by Oscilloscope

In December, Plexifilm helped organize a New York theatrical run for our friend Stephen Kijak’s documentary SCOTT WALKER: 30 CENTURY MAN. We’re pleased to announce that the SW30 DVD will be released later this year through Beastie Boy Adam Yauch’s film company, Oscilloscope Laboratories. Congrats to Stephen and Oscilloscope, and best of luck with the release.

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Friday, October 31st, 2008

I Am Trying to Release a Blu-ray

Dear Plexifans,

Next month, we planned to release a high-definition Blu-ray edition of Sam Jones’ acclaimed 2002 documentary about the band Wilco, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart. Earlier this week, Wilco sent a message to their fans telling them not to buy the Blu-ray disc, saying that they didn’t think the film warranted a Blu-ray edition. While we respect Wilco’s opinions, they hadn’t seen the Blu-ray version of the film, nor had they contacted us and asked to see it, or expressed any concerns about it to us whatsoever.

Look, we’re huge Wilco fans too, we co-produced the film and we’ve been distributing it for almost seven years now. But (stay seated fellow fans) this is not Wilco’s film… it’s Sam Jones’ film, that happens to be about Wilco. And at the end of the day, our responsibility is to the filmmakers whose work we distribute, and it’s our duty to release that work in the best possible format we can. We used to release films on VHS, then DVD, now on Blu-ray and iTunes; as the technology progresses, we’ll continue to release our films in these new media. Most importantly, any decision about the format in which to release a film is the filmmaker’s decision, period.

With the Blu-ray release of Helvetica earlier this year, Plexifilm has started a program of releasing films in our catalog that were either a) shot on 16mm or 35mm film, or b) shot in high-definition video, as a Blu-ray disc. Producing a Blu-ray disc is expensive, and we also have to pay a per-disc fee to the Blu-ray Association for the privilege of pressing the discs (don’t get us started on that). But the HD resolution and better sound of Blu-ray are hands-down better than DVD… it’s not even close.

I Am Trying to Break Your Heart was shot (beautifully, we might add) on super-16mm film. We had originally done a high-def transfer of the film print, which was then down-converted to standard definition for the DVD release. So we started with a high-def, pristine representation of the film, then had to dumb down its resolution to conform to old DVD technology.

The advent of Blu-ray meant that we could go back and release the much-better HD transfer, which no one has ever seen. It’s the closest you can get to actually sitting in a theater and watching the original film. Does it make the film look like Spiderman 3? No, but it’s the best possible representation of the movie. As filmmakers, we’ve been dealing with the poor quality of DVD for a decade now, so it’s a relief to finally see our work available in a better-quality HD format. If you have the standard DVD, should you run out and buy a Blu-ray player just to see it? Maybe not. But if you already have a Blu-ray player, you’ll want to see this version.

That said, we don’t feel comfortable releasing a version of the film that Wilco might have reservations about. So here’s what we’re doing: we’re postponing the Blu-ray release, to give us an opportunity to show the band the differences between the HD and standard definition versions. We hope they agree that fans with HD televisions and Blu-ray players deserve to see the best possible edition of the film.

We’ll keep you posted…

-Plexi

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Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008

Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests

We’ve just announced the first ever authorized DVD release of Andy Warhol’s films: 13 Most Beautiful… Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests. The DVD includes 13 of Warhol’s classic screen tests, including Nico, Edie Sedgwick, Dennis Hopper, Lou Reed, and more, paired with new soundtracks by Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips. Warhol made over 500 of these four-minute screen test films, and they’re some of his most subtly brilliant work.

Plexi’s been collaborating with the folks at the Warhol Museum to produce the DVD, it’s been an amazing project to work on. And this Friday the screen tests will be projected with a live soundtrack by Dean & Britta at the Byham Theater in Pittsburgh. They’ll be touring the live event across the US and Europe early next year.

We’ve has just made the DVDs available for pre-order, in a standard edition and a deluxe limited edition that includes a gelatin-silver print of the screen test star of your choice.

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Wednesday, September 10th, 2008

On seven years in the indie film business

Yesterday, The New York Times published another profile of Beastie Boy Adam Yauch and his new film distribution company, Oscilloscope Pictures:

“Oscilloscope Pictures will operate in a model similar to an independent record label, Mr. Yauch, 44, said over green tea in a de facto conference room at his TriBeCa office.”

Hmmm… that sounds familiar. Not the green tea part (straight espresso for me, thanks), the film-company-as-record-label part. Oh, it’s because that’s what I’ve been doing for exactly seven years today!

On Monday, September 10th 2001, we switched on the lights at the offices of Plexifilm (okay, it was the living room of my Brooklyn apartment). I was obsessed with these shiny new discs called DVDs, but I had no idea how the film industry worked. I had worked at an indie record label before (SST), and I’d been involved in various DIY media projects for over 15 years, so I wanted to start sort of a record label, but for films. On that first day it was just me and my first employee, Sean Anderson, who’d recently left the Criterion Collection, and ironically had also produced the Beastie Boys video compilation Criterion put out. Day One was uneventful; we worked on a press release that we were going to send out to the world the next morning. I spent Day Two on the roof of my building, looking at the smoking wreckage of the World Trade Center and watching thousands of ash-faced people walking slowly back over the Manhattan bridge. We had to wait a few months before sending out that press release.

Seven years after our chaotic beginnings, together with a band of revolutionaries who joined me, we’ve managed to release about 40 incredible films (above), produce a half-dozen original documentary projects, and get these films in front of millions of viewers. We’ve thrown countless parties and premieres, and only been thrown out of a couple of them. We’ve pissed some people off, but hopefully inspired a lot more. But most of all we’ve been honored to have met and been able to work with so many great filmmakers. Being involved with their projects pushed me to make my first film a few years ago, Helvetica, and has set me on a course of documentary filmmaking that I hope to continue for the rest of my life.

Looking back, it’s all a blur, maybe because there has never been any time to relax and take in what we were accomplishing. Running a small, totally independent (i.e., no corporate backers or investors) film distribution company is a constant, stress-filled, cash-starved struggle. In some ways, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But we’ve had a lot of help over the years, from far too many people and companies to list here, and somehow we’ve managed to keep it going. And I’m extremely proud of all the films we’ve released.

Back to Adam Yauch. Seven years ago when I launched Plexi, I was convinced that a few months later there would be dozens of other indie DVD labels sprouting up, that DVD technology and DIY philosophy would produce an indie music-esque DVD revolution. It hasn’t exactly panned out that way… so it’s nice to see another label like Oscilloscope out there that shares our philosophy, and I wish Adam the best of luck. Although, has Plexifilm ever received a New York Times profile? Or any profile for that matter? Nope. But I’d like to think that by helping all these films get distributed, we’ve changed people’s lives just a little bit, as I’m sure Oscilloscope will with the films they release.

So thanks to Matt, Chris, Brian, Laurence, Leslie, and everyone who’s worked for, or been involved with Plexifilm. Who knows what the independent film business will look like seven years from now, or what we’ll all be doing then, but the past seven years have been the best and most inspiring of my life.

– Gary

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Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

Wilco and Death Cab films on iTunes

Plexifilm’s digital distribution rollout continues… You can now download the Wilco documentary I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, and the Death Cab for Cutie film Drive Well, Sleep Carefully, on iTunes. Stay tuned as we add more films in the upcoming months.

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Friday, September 5th, 2008

Wild Combination in theaters September 26

Wild Combination premieres September 26 in New York at the IFC Center, and in London at the ICA Cinemas. Be there!

PS: Posters available soon…

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Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

Plexifilm on iTunes!

Guess which font film is available as a digital download from iTunes, as of yesterday? You guessed it. And guess which font film is already the the #1 documentary on iTunes? Right again. Eminem, Shmeminem. iTunes users, download Helvetica to your computer or your tiny mobile device. Or watch the trailer on iTunes (which looks surprisingly good) and get more info.

Stay tuned for more Plexifilm titles on iTunes, including the Wilco film, We Jam Econo, and more…

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Friday, July 11th, 2008

On deck: Wild Combination

WILD COMBINATION: A PORTRAIT OF ARTHUR RUSSELL

Plexifilm is pleased to announce the forthcoming release of Wild Combination, Matt Wolf’s acclaimed documentary on seminal avant-garde composer, singer-songwriter, cellist, and disco producer Arthur Russell. Before his death from AIDS in 1992, Arthur created music that spanned both pop and the transcendent possibilities of abstract art. The film incorporates rare archival footage and commentary from Arthur’s family, friends, collaborators and admirers, including Philip Glass, Allen Ginsberg, Jens Lekman, and many more. Stay tuned for details on New York and London cinema runs, and the DVD release (loaded with rare archival bonus footage of Arthur) this fall.

See the film at these upcoming events:

Museum of Contemporary Art Miami, Florida
July 12, 2:00: Free

Maine Film Festival, Waterville, Maine
July 13, 6:30 – Railroad Sq. Cinema
July 15, 9:00 – Opera House
Filmmaker and Cast in attendance July 13th

Outfest, Los Angeles – PLATINUM GALA
July 15, 7:00: Director’s Guild of America
Filmmaker in Attendance

New Zealand Film Festival
Auckland: July 17, 6:45pm / July 21, 11:30am
Wellington: July 24, 1:15pm / July 26, 1:30pm

Era New Horizons, Wroclaw, Poland
July 19, 13:00 – Teatr Lalek
July 22, 21:45 – Helios 1

Melbourne International Film Festival, Australia
August 1, 9:15PM – Capitol
August 10, 5:15PM – Great Union 5

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Monday, July 7th, 2008

Ariel Pink to Join Gary Wilson at DKTR festival


After this Thursday’s (July 10th) screening of You Think You Really Know Me: The Gary Wilson Story at the Silent Movie Theater in L.A. as part of the Don’t Knock The Rock Film and Music Festival, Ariel Pink will be joining Gary Wilson for live performance that will surely blow minds.
Tickets are still available.

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