A favorite blog that I like to follow is Film Studies for Free. The author is Catherine Grant of the University of Kent in the UK. She recently posted a great bunch of links to free introductions to film studies. The post should be useful to any student of film, even the ones teaching other students (Read: Me).

There are several links to the works of David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, the authors of Film As Art and the Observations on film art and Film Art blog. You may have noticed their names mentioned on this blog in the past.

Check out Catherine’s post and click on the links in your spare time. We all might just learn a few things.

If you know me, you know that I am a huge fan of Albert and David Maysles‘ film, Grey Gardens. I show it every year to my film students when we study Direct Cinema. While the film does an amazing job of painting the picture of what life must have been like in the ’70’s inside the 10-bedroom 1897 house, I like to show where it all took place.

Today, I was lucky enough to run across this interesting April, ‘09 NY Times article about the people that bought this incredible property from Little Edie. Sally Quinn and her husband, Benjamin C. Bradlee, bought the house and restored it to glory. If you have seen the film, you know that this must have been a daunting task. If you haven’t seen the film, check out this NY Times Slideshow of what the house looked like around the time of purchase. The annotations offer more to the story.

For an update on what the property looks like today, check out this slideshow or if you really want to see the gardens, watch this video.

The story of Grey Gardens continues to be of interest. With the new HBO film, it doesn’t look like it going away anytime soon.

Are you looking for another way to get your video into a festival. Well, now is your chance. The International Student Media Festival is waiting for entries. Entries must be received by June 1, 2009. Check out the Entry Guide for details on how to enter.

Good luck!

We just received word from the Slick Rock Film Festival that 10 of the 15 films that we submitted have made the Top 50 cut. While there were some good films missing from the list, there were some great ones that did. Advanced Film and TV Class student, Ellie, had 5 of her 7 films accepted. Way to go, Ellie! We even had a couple of freshman make the list with their film, The Perfect Town. For fun, here’s a peek at:

We won’t know if any of the films are nominated for The Rock until the night of the festival. If you are in the area, stop by the Visalia Fox Theater in Downtown Visalia (308 W. Main Street) on May 16th. All Top 50 films will be shown for free from 11:00 PM – 4:00 PM on the giant 40’ screen with megawatt sound. The day culminates with the Awards Ceremony at 7:00 PM.

Congratulations, El Diamante Video Students!

It has been busy around the El Diamante Video room. Not only have I been busy with taking a couple of online courses and doing Google Workshops around the area, but the kids have been busy cranking out award winning videos.

We had a couple of Intro to Video groups enter the California Multimedia Festival. This also marks the first time we have ever entered a show from On Air with Ed Hews, our bi-weekly TV Show. Keep your fingers crossed for all the kids that were part of those productions.

Lastly, we entered 16 videos into the Slick Rock Film Festival. No offense to former students, but this year’s batch of videos has the to be the best collection of work we have ever entered. I am amazed by each one of the videos. Look for us to post a video or two on this blog.

Congratulations to all of you that worked so hard. Good luck to you!

students: Fill out the Slick Rock Form for your film