Fuck the Fear, circa London, 1977

They [The Clash] were afraid to play until they saw the Ramones. I mean, Paul [Simonon] and Mick [Jones] told the Ramones, “Now that we’ve seen you, we’re gonna be a band.” The Ramones said, “You gotta play, guys. You know, come out of the basement and play. That’s what we did.”

Basically the Ramones said to them, which they said to countless other bands, “You don't have to be better, just get out there, you’re as good as you are. Don't wait until you’re better, how are you gonna ever know? Just go out there and do it.”

That’s what the Ramones got from The New York Dolls, you know, “What are we waiting for?”

To me that’s the important part of it, what bands pass along to other bands by way of confidence.”

—Danny Fields, manager of the Ramones. Quoted in Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain

Recent Posts on the MediaStorm Blog

The Dude on Photography

It's been my honor to produce this project on a such an awesome subject. And I count it as one of the greatest moments of my life that Bridges said we did a "cool job."

Details: The Project was made in collaboration with the International Center of Photography with support from the Harbers Family Foundation.

From the project description:

Jeff Bridges is an Academy Award-winning actor. He is also an accomplished photographer. He’s been taking pictures on the set of his movies for more than 30 years, capturing intimate and surprising behind-the-scenes moments.

To watch videos for the other seven honorees please see the MediaStorm blog.

Congrats to all the winners.

Eight New Tutorials on the MediaStorm Blog

MediaStorm Wins First at NPPA Best of Photojournalism

I couldn’t be more proud of the MediaStorm family.

A Shadow Remains by Phillip Toledano won first place at NPPA’s Best of Photojournalism 2013 contest, in the Documentary Multimedia category. The piece was produced by my good friend Tim Mclaughlin.

Second prize went to former intern Andrew Hida for his master’s thesis Follow My Steps. I was part of Andrew’s thesis committee so this one makes me especially happy.

Check out the MediaStorm blog for more details.

More Premiere Pro Tutorials on the MediaStorm Blog

Steven Soderbergh on Retiring from Filmmaking

And what was that reason? It’s a combination of wanting a change personally and of feeling like I’ve hit a wall in my development that I don’t know how to break through. The tyranny of narrative is beginning to frustrate me, or at least narrative as we’re currently defining it. I’m convinced there’s a new grammar out there somewhere. But that could just be my form of theism.

from Steven Soderbergh on Quitting Hollywood, Getting the Best Out of J-Lo, and His Love of Girls

Follow My Steps by Former Intern Extraordinaire Andrew Hida

First a confession. I have a bit of a man crush on Andrew Hida. A bit. He's one of the most talented interns with whom I've had the pleasure of working. I remember a particular screening with him, when we were showing Brian a piece we'd been working on for weeks. Andrew had helped organize thousands of images and hours of video. He'd also edited one of the sections in the project. Brian watched the piece silently, then he said, this section is really great. It was, of course, Andrew's. He didn't cop to the truth so I did for him.

So that's Andrew. And Follow My Steps is his thesis.

It's everything I like about the guy. It's honest and intimate and funny and just good.

One last confession: I sat on his thesis committee along with Bruce Strong and Seth Gitner. It was one of the best decisions I made this year.

Watch it. And watch out for Andrew. You'll be seeing a lot of him.

The American-Made Benny

Eddie Van Halen once described his guitar playing as falling down a flight of stairs and landing on his feet.

This project feels about the same, though I'm still not sure exactly how we landed.

The American-Made Benny consists of the feature plus a two-part epilogue: Benny Watches in Split Screen and Benny Responds.

Also check out my essay Unanswered Questions: On the Limits of the Single-Subject Interview for a full account of this production's challenges.