Sometimes a development emerges at a pageant, whether or not accidentally or design. This yr, that development simply is likely to be Frame.io.
Out of a document 17,000 movies submitted to Sundance and ninety-two chosen for screening, a whopping forty-six movies used Frame.io of their workflow. That’s fifty p.c! Included in that quantity are pageant standouts My Old Ass, Thelma, and Frida, all of which used Frame.io.
Does that imply that utilizing Frame.io will assure your movie a spot on the pageant? Not essentially. But there does appear to be a powerful correlation between Frame customers and Sundance success. Filmmaking groups with companions working across the globe particularly love the facility and suppleness they get from Frame.io.
Sundance creators love Frame.io
This yr, I used to be fortunate sufficient to attend the Sundance Film Festival. Everywhere I went in Park City, individuals appeared keen to speak about Frame. My first encounter was with It’s What’s Inside director Greg Jardin and his producer Jason Baum. I occurred to strike up a dialog with them on the bus touring to Main Street. Jardin and Baum eagerly instructed me how Frame.io had helped them create their movie along side Premiere Pro and After Effects. I needed them luck, however apparently they didn’t want it. The subsequent day, It’s What’s Inside offered to Netflix for $17 million within the second main sale of Sundance 2024.
Jardin and Baum weren’t the one creators enthusiastic about Frame. In the press line for Frida, director/editor Carla Gutierrez instructed me, “Frame.io was our central way of communicating. We worked with collaborators in Mexico who were collecting archival footage and uploading it into Frame. That was the first step to me being able to see what I could use creatively in the film.”
Frame.io was our central means of speaking.
“We also used Frame later on in the process,” Gutierrez continued, “to receive notes from executives and our supervising editor. We also used it to go back and forth with the animation team about creative notes. Frame was our communications hub. I love Frame.io!”
Producer/actor Kayla Foster had related emotions. On the press line for the supernatural comedy Your Monster, she stated, “Being able to go through Frame.io and make every single note that we wanted to, linked to timecodes, was life-changing. We started our post process using different programs, but once we discovered Frame.io, it was game over. It was incredible.”
Didi editor Arielle Zakowski additionally had sort phrases for Frame. At the “Igniting Impact” speak, she instructed the viewers that Didi “used Frame.io from day one of shooting. Our crew was up in northern California, and we were editing down in LA. Every night, the crew would upload all the dailies to Frame. By lunchtime the next day, I was already screening footage.”
“Frame.io was also how we shared cuts with our producers,” Zakowski continued. “It was how we got the film to and from our composer and our VFX team. We also had several motion graphics scenes in the movie. We were posting those in Frame and our director was leaving notes right on the footage while he was working in various finishing houses all over the place. Frame.io was truly our base of communications from day one of shooting to two weeks ago when we finished the film.”
Focus Features just lately acquired worldwide rights to Didi. The movie additionally received Sundance’s U.S. Dramatic Audience Award and the U.S. Dramatic particular jury award for greatest ensemble solid.
Festival developments: AI
Frame.io wasn’t the one shocking development at this yr’s Sundance. Artificial Intelligence took heart stage, primarily embodied within the Kristen Stewart-starring drama Love Me, which can also be a Frame.io movie. Set in a future with out people, Stewart in some way embodied a 350 Smart buoy that carried on a romance with an area satellite tv for pc (performed by Steven Yuen). The imaginative movie took house Sundance’s Alfred P. Sloan Prize for Science in Film.
AI weirdness was additionally the main target of Love Machina, a documentary a couple of plan to put a human consciousness inside a robotic. Similarly, Eternal You centered an AI program that hopes to convey the useless again as avatars. The “Let’s Rebrand AI!” fireplace speak continued the development by bringing artists and artistic technologists collectively to interrogate AI’s place in common tradition.
In the New Frontier program, the controversial Being (The Digital Griot) undertaking prompted viewers members to stroll out of the demonstration. Being is artist Rashaad Newsome’s try and show an AI that may keep on conversations with individuals. Theatergoers had been inspired to method the silver display and ask the AI to converse with them about matters like racism or the patriarchy.
Reportedly, an viewers member appeared to shout profanity about AI in the course of the screening. Newsome responded by refusing to take part in a post-screening Q&A till the viewers member was ejected from the theater. Roughly 1 / 4 of the viewers walked out of the auditorium in solidarity.
This incident highlights the rising tensions that many individuals really feel concerning the presence of AI within the filmmaking world. Whether or not Sundance’s lineup helped or harmed AI’s place within the {industry} remains to be up for debate.
Trending in direction of the paranormal
There was one other development rearing its darkish head at this yr’s Sundance. The Midnight program had the supernatural springing out of on a regular basis objects or areas, equivalent to a TV set (I Saw the TV Glow), within the wilderness (In a Violent Nature), out of a suitcase (It’s What’s Inside), from a closet (Your Monster), or out of a 90’s sitcom (Krazy House).
And if that wasn’t bizarre sufficient for you, the deceased got here again to life in Handling the Undead. Aubrey Plaza met her future self in My Old Ass. A person joined The American Society of Magical Negros and the documentary Look Into My Eyes explored the connection between psychics and their shoppers. Audiences additionally noticed a haunting from the ghost’s perspective in Steven Soderbergh’s new movie Presence. And the “nonfiction adjacent” movie Realm of Satan confirmed Satanists simply making an attempt to stay their on a regular basis magical lives in peace.
Cultural idols
The Sundance developments didn’t cease there. The pageant additionally sported a string of documentaries that had been centered on leisure and cultural icons. Tammy Faye Messner, Frida Kahlo, Christopher Reeve, Luther Vandross, and the band Devo all had documentaries about them screening on the pageant.
One shock was the movie Eno. It used AI to create the primary “randomized” documentary about legendary producer-artist-composer Brian Eno. Speaking on the movie’s world premier, filmmaker Gary Hustwit and artistic technologist Brendan Dawes estimated that their distinctive generative software program might create round “fifty-two quintillion” doable narrative branches for the movie. Sundance solely confirmed six variations of Eno this yr, however future software program iterations might edit the film stay in theaters, giving audiences a singular expertise each single time.
Unexpected connections
A Sundance standout that doesn’t sit comfortably in any of those developments is Thelma. Thelma is director Josh Margolin’s hilarious story of a grandmother who goes on a Mission Impossible-style journey throughout LA to retrieve her cash, which was stolen by cellphone scammers.
Margolin can also be a Frame.io fan. Speaking on the Adobe on Main venue, he stated, “Frame.io’s interface was incredibly helpful because notes could be placed specifically in the timeline. Usually, I feel like I am sending emails about timecodes back and forth, trying to figure out where the note should be. Frame.io lets us have a conversation about a very specific point in the timeline. That made working remotely feel less strange. It was very helpful.”
Thelma‘s trend-defying narrative connected with me in more ways than one. As I was sitting in Prospector Square Theatre waiting for the lights to dim, I Googled actress June Squibb, the film’s 94-year-old main woman. I needed to learn her Wikipedia web page twice to consider what I used to be seeing. June Squibb was born and raised in my hometown!
Once I used to be performed laugh-crying at Thelma’s many zany, tear-jerking plot twists, I made a decision to set out on a Mission Impossible task of my very own. My mission? To infiltrate the Thelma premier celebration and meet fellow Vandalian June Squibb.
Challenge accepted
I knew the Thelma premier celebration was going to be held at a giant, stunning home referred to as Adobe on Main. There, guests might seize a chew, chill out, recharge, and listen to tales from the pageant’s hottest filmmakers. Adobe additionally used the home to host chats with Sundance luminaries like Mark Duplass, Daniel Dae Kim, Melissa Barrera, Mel Eslyn, and extra. All these celebrities floating round meant it was going to exhausting for me to sneak in. I additionally had one different drawback: I wasn’t on the Thelma visitor listing.
Luckily, Frame.io had a smooth demo station arrange inside Adobe on Main. They additionally had a photograph sales space that, utilizing C2C expertise, allowed festivalgoers to immediately take away a shareable image of themselves posing in entrance of a enjoyable backdrop. And just like last year, Frame.io supported twelve Sundance content material manufacturing groups with producing their every day recaps. Since I work for Frame, I might use all of that to persuade those who I undoubtedly, completely belonged on the Thelma premiere celebration.
Using my trusty Frame.io enterprise card, I used to be capable of slip previous the entrance door. I tiptoed upstairs and determined to cover out on the second-floor balcony. Unfortunately, the snow was coming down exhausting. And it was completely freezing outdoors. But Tom Cruise was clearly smiling down on me from someplace, as a result of the Adobe home had heated seats put in throughout the balcony.
Then, I heard a commotion down under! I ran to the railing and regarded down. Below, I noticed actor Fred Hechinger standing subsequent to a black automobile. He was serving to somebody out. This was my likelihood!
Casually, I lunged headfirst down the staircase. June Squibb was proper there, sitting in a chair on the far aspect of room! After two sweaty, knee-shaking laps across the Adobe home, I lastly mustered up the braveness to speak to her.
To my aid, June was delighted to speak to me. We chatted at size about Vandalia and all of the ways in which the city had modified through the years. She additionally talked about one thing that made me pause. Apparently, individuals from our hometown attempt to attain out to her on a regular basis by means of Facebook. I instructed her that she must be very cautious who she talks to on the web. She simply laughed and guaranteed me that she was savvier than her Thelma character when it got here to on-line scams.
Celebrities, celebrities in all places!
Mrs. Squibb wasn’t the one celeb to come across at Sundance. The pageant hosted a ton of industry-leading talks about the way forward for filmmaking. These had been hosted by marquee names like Stephen Soderbergh, Lucy Lawless, and Jesse Eisenberg. Issa Rae instructed the “The Art of Doing You” MasterClass on the World of Hyatt. Aubrey Plaza and firm led a panel for My Old Ass at Chase Sapphire on Main. In quick, Sundance was the place to find out about filmmaking from a few of the largest and brightest names within the {industry}.
But talks and panels weren’t the one method to see the celebrities. I personally bumped into actors Justice Smith, Kieran Culkin, and Robert Downey Jr. simply by strolling down Main Street. Other huge names sighted in and round Adobe on Main had been Malia Obama and Christopher Nolan.
There was additionally a rumor going round that Will Ferrell was about to DJ a set on the MACRO Lodge. Every evening, I heard whispers that this was lastly the evening of his apparently-legendary efficiency. However, after almost every week of looking, I discovered zero proof that such an occasion occurred. Frame.io Insider will proceed to watch this breaking story because it develops…
Those Sundance moments
It’s not the celebrities that make Sundance what it’s anyway. Amidst all of the glitz and glamor, the center of Sundance lies in these spontaneous, unquantifiable moments. Like after the premier of Black Box Diaries, when Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” performed over the audio system, prompting your complete theater to leap out of their seats to bop and sing alongside.
Sundance is about many alternative issues. It’s about seeing a tremendous film and realizing that the movie’s main woman was born in your hometown. It’s about wandering right into a random, quiet-looking constructing and discovering a free Black Keys live performance. It’s Will Ferrell allegedly DJing on the Macro. And it’s additionally about discovering an entire new world of recent filmmakers who’re pushing cinema into the longer term.
But right here’s my important takeaway: the buzziest movies at this yr’s Sundance used Frame.io and most of these will get distribution. Some of them have already got. It’s What’s Inside landed at Netflix in an enormous $17 million sale. It used Frame.io and Premiere Pro to assist rating that eye-popping deal. My Old Ass, an Avid/Frame.io undertaking, walked away with a $15 million supply from Amazon’s MGM studios. Fellow Avid/Frame.io doc Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story additionally offered to Warner Bros Discovery for $15 million. And, fortunately, Thelma simply landed a cope with Magnolia Pictures. You go, June!
No matter how you narrow it, the development is evident: Frame.io had a huge impact on the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Creators agreed that Frame.io provides them the facility and suppleness to finish their initiatives with the groups they need, irrespective of the place on the planet they occur to be. This yr’s moviegoing panorama is definitely going to be a extra attention-grabbing and numerous place due to Frame.
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