September Court 13 E-mail Update

Here is an email we sent out to all Court 13 supporters. If you're a regular reader of our blog, most of this will not be news to you.

If you'd like to join our e-mail army, please click
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Hello Court 13 Faithful!

Well it should be no surprise that more than four months have passed since our last "monthly" Court 13 update (The good news is we didn't clog up your inbox though, right?). But don't confuse our lack of communication with inertia, because its source is in fact the opposite: we've actually been busy as bees down here in New Orleans... and so our silence is even less excusable. Let's just get right to the bullet points:


* Benjamin Harold Zeitlin attended the Sundance Directors/Screenwriters Lab in June, in service of the new project, "BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD." The Directors Lab allowed Benh to work out directing challenges his and Lucy's script presents, and workshop certain scenes with talented actors. Benh was grateful to work with Ms. Paula Jai Parker (whom you might recognize from her turn as Craig's girlfriend in the film "Friday"), and Mr. Eddie Rouse (star of Court friend Zack Godshall's film "Low and Behold," and frequent player in the movies of David Gordon Green). Following the Director’s Lab, he and "Beasts" co-writer Lucy Alibar took part in a 2nd Screenwriters Lab to continue workshopping the script.

* In July, Court 13's Josh Penn and Dan Janvey were 2 of 6 fellows selected for the 2009 Sundance Creative Producers Initiative. The initiative was created to support a new generation of emerging indie producers. While in Utah, they took part in the Producer’s Lab, which is designed to develop a producer's creative instincts and to evolve their communication and problem-solving skills. At the labs their mentors included Paul Mezey ("Maria Full of Grace," "Half Nelson"), Jay Van Hoy ("Old Joy," "Treeless Mountain"), Lynette Howell ("Half Nelson," "Phoebe in Wonderland"), and Mary Jane Skalski ("The Visitor," "The Station Agent"). As fellows they also attended the Creative Producing Summit and received grants for further development and pre-production. The fellowship will continue throughout the year as they will receive ongoing creative and strategic support from industry mentors and the Sundance staff, and will attend the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.

* Spike Jonze tapped Court 13’s Ray Tintori to write/direct an adaptation of Shane Jones debut novel “Light Boxes," which Jonze will produce. The book tells the story of a war waged by a group of balloonists against the seemingly endless month of February. As a side note, Court 13 is officially very excited to see Jonze’s new movie, “Where the Wild Things Are”.

* Work continued full steam ahead on "BEASTS": Benh and Lucy got their creative distributaries flowing by spending a writer's retreat on top of a bait shop, in the very bayous where the film takes place and where we aim to shoot. The final script is in its last stages. Meanwhile we continue to scour every Parish, community center, and school system in the great state of Louisiana, looking for that one girl, one special girl, who can fill the very large (but actually very small) shoes of the main part in the film (If you know any half-black Cajun 8 year-olds who can gut a fish and operate a fanboat, please contact michael@court13.com IMMEDIATELY).

* It was unusually hot in May.

* The Court 13 Acting/Moviemaking Program for Young People, or whatever we're calling it today, concluded with the Premiere of each of the three classes' short films at Colton School. Parents applauded, children blushed, fun was had by all. We have been proudly rolling these movies out on the blog the last couple of weeks; the final one was posted a couple days ago--check it out by clicking here. The kids look forward to appearing in the upcoming feature film.

* Ray Tintori's long-awaited music video for MGMT's "Kids" (filmed at Colton and in New Orleans) was released, and a small blogstorm ensued. Click here to see what all the fuss was about.

* Religious war broke out in the comments section of the "Glory at Sea" YouTube page (page 2 is where the fun is). Everyone is being very amiable and tolerant, as is standard practice for YouTube discourse.

* Court 13 Omnimedia's music video for "Evident Utensil," by Chairlift, was nominated for an MTV Video Music Award, for Best Breakthrough Video. Ray directed, Bob Weisz produced and datamoshed. We expect EVERYONE to tune in to the prestigious ceremony this Sunday, to support your favorite Omnimedia organization.

That's it for right now! Development on the film charges ahead, army and weapons will be assembled in winter, and the big sha-bang will go down in early spring. Stay tuned! You can keep slightly less sporadic tabs on us by visiting our blog at court13news.blogspot.com, and you can catch even more news and silly status updates by facebooking us here.


Thanks for your time, and may you have a good harvest season.



Love,

The Court

MOVIE: "The Big Hide-and-Go-Seek" - by the Thursday class

Our final presentation from the kids of the Court 13 Acting/Moviemaking After School Program... "The Big Hide-and-Go-Seek" is a whodunit set in the halls of Colton, where a legendary Hide-and-Go-Seek game went down, recalled "Rashomon"-style by its participants on a daytime talk show.


Starring Alexis, Kenneth, Larielle, Margot, Saida, Tione, and Wynton.

MOVIE: "Detention = Doom" - by the Wednesday class

As promised, here's the next kids' film- this one from the Wednesday class. It's a horror/psychological thriller/movie about a talking grasshopper. Sort of.



Starring Antonio, Bryonna, Eddie, Nicholas, Ryan, and Terielle.

MOVIE: "Scaredy Cat Superheroes" - a film by the Tuesday class

As mentioned in prior posts, Court 13 runs what could best be termed an after school program for the handful of talented, creative, and hilarious kids who we have chosen to appear in our next big feature film... the name of which you already know, if you read this blog at all, so I will refer to it with a title that one might use to tout its concept in one of those anxious Hollywood pitch sessions--"FIDDLER ON THE LEVEE."

Before they appear in "FIDDLER ON THE LEVEE," we wanted to give these micro-performers some experience acting and making a movie. So each of the three classes came up with their own story ideas for a short film, and, as a kind of final project, we shot them, edited them, and premiered them. We think they're pretty good!

We'll be rolling all three out over the next couple weeks, but for right now, here's the Tuesday class movie, "SCAREDY CAT SUPERHEROES." Starring Amari, Jonshel, Lauren, Nathan, Nyla, Theodore, and Mr. Chris. We tried to drop it on YouTube, but music industry tyrants jacked our audio before you could say "fair use." You can protest the handicapped version here.

Look for the Wednesday movie, described as "Polanski-esque," and the Thursday movie, a murder mystery without any murder (we swear, parents), coming soon.

Evident Utensil nominated for Best Breakthrough Video at the MTV VMAs

Court 13 Omnimedia’s music video for Chairlift’s "Evident Utensil" has been nominated for “Best Breakthrough Video” for this year’s MTV Video Music Awards. The video was directed by Ray Tintori and produced and special effected by Bob Weisz.

Please watch and vote for the video at
http://www.mtv.com/ontv/vma/2009/breakthrough-video/

Court Beasts Sundance / Sundance Courts "Beasts"

As I type these very words, two of the producers of the upcoming "Beasts of the Southern Wild," Dan Janvey and Josh Penn, are on a mountain in the land of the Utes, gleaning knowledge from the independent film world's best and brightest.

Yes, that's right, we've batted for the cycle: after the invaluable chance to attend both the Sundance Screenwriters Lab and the Directors Lab, Court 13 was also accepted into the Sundance Producers Lab! The press release from Sundance has more info:

The Feature Film Creative Producing Lab, a five-day Lab for narrative feature film producers takes place at the Sundance Resort in Utah from July 20-24, 2009, just prior to the [Creative Producing] Summit. The Lab is designed to develop a producer's creative instincts in all stages of film production and to evolve his/her communication and problem-solving skills. The fellows will also attend the Creative Producing Summit, the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, receive ongoing creative and strategic support throughout the year from industry mentors and the Feature Film Program staff, and also grants for further development and pre-production.

Needless to say, we are very very appreciative and humbled by this opportunity--Benh came back from the Directors Lab gushing with praise for what Sundance has set up on that there mountain. We fully intend to jam all over it.

PHOTOS: Premiere of the Kids' Films!

On July 2nd, friends and family joined the 19 kids enrolled in the Court 13 Acting and Moviemaking School for Young People, for the premiere of their films. The turnout was remarkable--around 100 people showed up at the Colton Auditorium! The films were shown in order of the classes that conceived them: "Scaredy Cat Superheroes" (Tuesday), "Detention Equals Doom" (Wednesday), and "The Big Hide-and-Go-Seek" (Thursday).



These are some pictures from the event. You can spot Mr. Chris Kaminstein, Michael Gottwald (two of the teachers of the classes), as well as Benh Zeitlin, and most of the 19 kids.

Court 13's Filmmaking Class Movie Premiere

Over the past 3 months Court 13 has been teaching Filmmaking and Acting Classes at the Studio at Colton to 3 groups of children ages 7-12 from the New Orleans area. As the final project of the classes, the kids led the creative process of making films; they came up with the ideas for the stories, acted in all the roles, and even improvised some of their own dialogue.

The 19 children in the classes were selected from over 300 kids who auditioned from a wide variety of public schools in Orleans, St. Bernard, and Jefferson Parishes. In addition to taking the class and making these films, all of the students in the class will appear in Court 13’s feature film.

This Thursday, July 2nd at 7:30 PM we will be premiering the 3 movies the children made in the classes. The premiere will take place in the Auditorium at the Colton School at 2300 St. Claude Ave. The event is free and open to the public.

Below are a few photos from the classes.

The C13 Acting and Moviemaking School for Young People

In the tradition of our unique community approach to filmmaking, this spring we have introduced the inaugural class of the Court 13 Acting and Moviemaking School for Young People... aka the Court 13 After School Program, aka COURT THIRTEENIES: THE NEXT GENERATION.

Through grass roots outreach into Orleans and Jefferson Parish schools (not to mention flyers at po' boy shops and radio shout-outs on Q93), Court 13 garnered the interest of over 300 young, aspiring actors who came in to audition. From these we selected just 19 who will not only appear in our upcoming feature film "BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD" (in which kids feature prominently), but who have also been attending weekly acting and moviemaking classes at Colton, taught by Court 13. Not only do they get to flex their acting muscles, but they get to learn first hand what it takes to make movies, so they know what's going on when it's shoot time.


Included are a couple exercises we did with the Tuesday class. In the first, we came up with a line for each child, and practiced the idea of multiple takes by having them act the line out in multiple ways. What's included is each of their best takes. The second exercise gave each of them a chance to direct their own scenes: they would tell the actor what they wanted, decide what would happen in each shot, as well as where to place the camera and when to cut.

The classes will culminate with the creation of short films borne of the kids' own ideas--much like the Zeitlin micro-classic "I GET WET." We hope to premiere these short films in a few weeks at Colton with the friends and family of the kids, and share them with you shortly thereafter!

PHOTOS: "Kids" by MGMT - Behind the Scenes

Court 13 Omnimedia artiste Ray Tintori has just dropped another talk-of-the-town MGMT video, the long awaited "Kids" jam. Click HERE to watch if you haven't already.

The video was born and bred in New Orleans, with much of the monsters created and shot in Court 13's temporary home, the Studio at Colton. Many a Court 13 associate put their blood, sweat, and fears into bringing those monsters to life; check out this here photo slideshow for a glimpse behind the scenes.



All particularly dope pictures are the property of Mr. Ben Rowland. Do the right thing and check the other stuff on his website, here.