Sometimes, when it comes to art, you have to give yourself deadlines. The collaborators behind Sparrow Songs, cinematographer Michael Totten (who worked on the beautiful-looking doc Rize) and Alex Jablonski (whose short, Blue Boy, played at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival), have used this principle to produce one short documentary a month. It's a fascinating project, and it's taken them around America, from a donut shop to porn star karaoke to the circus to minor league ball, with every scenario shot in the most elegant and beautiful way by Totten's camera. As disparate as the topics may be, the shorts are all united in their humanity and gentleness, the respect and empathy that they show towards each subject. Their latest short, The Farm, would make a nice starter for Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's Sugar - both films take a hard look at what it takes to be a minor league baseball player,...
- 8/27/2010
- TribecaFilm.com
In the Works: Doc-a-Month Sparrow Songs, Asexuality Movement, Volcano Life, & Sierra Leone Civil War
This week's in production column takes a look at Sparrow Songs, a project where two filmmakers, Alex Jablonski and Michael Totten, make a short documentary each month. Also profiled are two projects from Kickstarter: Angela Tucker's documentary on the American asexuality movement and a profile of a town living at the base of a dangerous volcano. Finally, we profile a documentary project that was a part of the Independent Filmmakers Project ...
- 8/5/2010
- Indiewire
I was happy to see Adam Daniel Mezei on his new Pmd for Hire blog respond to the work of the Sparrow Songs team of Alex Jablonski and Michael Totten from this year’s “25 New Faces” list. Like me, he found something special in the tone and execution of these monthly short documentary pieces. (Check out Mezei’s post for detailed musings on five of the episodes.) Now, Jablonski and Totten are launching a Kickstarter campaign to allow them to cover the expenses of the project and to shoot three particularly ambitious final episodes. Check out their work on their own site and please consider supporting them.
- 8/2/2010
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Sparrow Songs is a documentary project by filmmaker Alex Jablonski and d.p. Michael Totten, who are making and posting one short doc film per month on their site for a whole year. They are six episodes in, and the films are quite wonderful. Averaging about eight minutes, they are poetic essays that capture the essences of specific places, people, and moments, and that then, without pretension, build these observances into larger statements about love, truth, community, and the ways we are choosing to live our lives. The films include Porn Star Karoke, about the crowd that gathers weekly at an L.A. club for an evening of karoke with adult movie stars. In Donut Shop, the filmmakers insert themselves into their film as they wonder why more...
- 4/29/2010
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Sparrow Songs is a project in which filmmaker Alex Jablonski and cinematographer Michael Totten make and exhibit one short documentary per month, every month for one year. This Month: Episode 3 - Porn Star Karaoke Every week porn performers, fans and others from the adult industry get together at a bar in the San Fernando Valley to sing karaoke. This is one look at one of those nights. Sparrow Songs - Episode 3 - Porn Star Karaoke from Sparrow Songs on Vimeo. All of the films are available for free on our website, www.thesparrowsongs.com. The website is also iPhone compatible so you can watch the films on the go. They are also available on Vimeo at vimeo.com/sparrowsongs. There's a blog about the project as well, sparrowsongs.wordpress.com...
- 1/6/2010
- by Sparrow Songs
- Huffington Post
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