Tuesday, December 5, 2006

Episode #5 - Show Notes - Adrian Belic Interview

Episode #5 was the first video podcast featuring an impromptu interview with documentary producer/director, Adrian Belic. Last year at Sundance I approached Adrian at one of the documentary seminars about scheduling an interview after I overheard him giving some passionate filmmaking advice to two other docmakers.

He was too busy to schedule an interview, but said we could knock one out right then. A few minutes later, we sneaked into a corner (okay it was basically a storage closet) and shot this impromptu interview. (Hence the lack of lighting.)


If you don't know who Adrian Belic is, he and his brother, Rocco, made the Oscar-nominated and Sundance Audience Award-winning doc, "Genghis Blues", which is about a blind blues singer that learns then excels at the rare art of Tuvan throat singing then goes on to the far reaches of the Republic of Tuva (near Mongolia) to compete in an annual Tuvan throat-singing contest. Adrian's most recent flick making the festival rounds is, "Beyond the Call". It's about a small group of doctors who risk life and limb to administer aid and healthcare to some of the most dangerous parts of the world.

So many people become jaded so quickly in this business. As soon as they achieve some success, they forget what it was like to be that hungry kid with a camera and a dream. So, it was refereshing to meet someone who's been in the film game so long, but hasn't lost their passion. In fact, talking to Adrian was like talking to a new film student, with the major exception that he actually knows what he's talking about.

Anyway, if you liked the little snippets of the video interview in the podcast, there will be longer versions of all the interviews in our upcoming instructional Guerrilla Filmmaking DVD which will hopefully be dropping this Spring or early Summer. There are also more video podcasts on the way soon. Mad thanx to Frank Monteleone of Full Armor Productions who did the animation and editing for the video podcast.