Hotbed Media Film Production Blog: Commercials, Shoots, Films, Culture, Strategy, Thoughts

ROD HUNTER OO7 Challenges You!

2010-03-31T12:56:00.000-07:00

Be a Fan of Valley of the Sun

2009-12-12T23:07:00.000-08:00

Valley of the Sun - Feature Film on Facebook

"Happily, Even After" Leaves Vienna

2009-12-08T23:15:00.000-08:00

Our feature film "Happily, Even After" has finally finished its theatrical run in Vienna, and the film print is on its way back to San Francisco. We played at the oldest theatre in the world, the Breitenseer Lichtspiele.

Hotbed Sees the Future

2009-11-28T21:57:00.000-08:00

Hotbed director Patrick Wilkinson wrote, directed and edited this spot for The International Risk Management Institute's Construction Risk Conference.

Valley of the Sun Wrapped

2009-11-25T22:26:00.000-08:00

Hotbed's third feature film Valley of the Sun wrapped Arizona Principal Photography on November 5th. The film, directed by Stokes McIntyre and lensed by Jeffrey Kimball, stars Johnny Whitworth, Heather Burns, Barry Corbin, Beth Grant, Peter Jason, Bette Ford, Garrett Morris, Pasha Lychnikoff and Oscar nominated Graham Greene.

Visit the Valley of the Sun Blog - >

Left: Kimball and McIntyre on the set of Valley of the Sun.

Valley of the Sun BTS

2009-11-13T13:01:00.000-08:00

Note From the Blacks

2009-11-11T08:39:00.000-08:00

Hi Blacks people. Surprise.

We're not back from the dead, but we've been captured for all eternity on the magic of film.
Director Stokes McIntyre's documentary, Meet The Blacks, is an entry in the 2010 Grammy awards for best long-form music video.

If you're a member of the Recording Academy, you can view all entries and vote at http://www.grammy.com.

(photo: Francis Joseph)

Rviews of Tiger Songs are in. Pick it up on iTunes -- the limited run CDs are sold out.

We kiss you hard,
The Bs

http://www.myspace.com/theblacksarehere
http://www.tricycle-records.com
http://www.rcrdlbl.com

"The dark garage rockers depart with an album that’s as compositionally seamless as it is raw, fierce and uncompromising."
--The Owl Mag

"What all rock music should be -- loud, melodic, heavy, and fanatical."
--Reax

More Reviews

Deli Magazine SF: http://www.thedelimagazine.com/sf/index.php?itemId=224326
Heave Media: http://heavemedia.com/review/267/tiger-songs
REAX: http://www.reaxmusic.com/reviews/view/the_blacks_-_tiger_songs-685

School is Good for Everyone

2009-07-18T00:05:00.000-07:00

Hotbed's Patrick Wilkinson directed these brand films for EnCorps, an organization founded by Sherry Lansing that assists retired professionals to become math and science teachers.

< - Click pics to view.

Happy Birthday America!

2009-07-04T23:51:00.000-07:00

How to Tell a Story

2009-06-29T11:01:00.001-07:00

Vacation

2009-06-20T21:18:00.001-07:00

Nature Rocks Hotbed

2009-06-08T09:30:00.000-07:00

Hotbed Director Stokes McIntyre shot stills for Iron Communications and the Nature Rocks landing page. What? A filmmaker shooting stills? Iron needed to tell a story with a series of images and thought Stokes had the chops do it. Visit the Nature Rocks Website : www.naturerocks.org.

Bigfoot Rolls Out on Youtube

2009-05-21T15:19:00.000-07:00

Hotbed Shoots Bigfoot

2009-05-07T23:54:00.001-07:00

Watch the Video

Hotbed Swims 4 Life

2009-03-31T09:37:00.000-07:00

Team Hotbed will participate in this year's Swim 4 Life Fundraiser organized by SurfAid International. The Hotbed team will swim a relay race to raise money to help the people of Mentawi and Nias battle malaria and other basic life challenges. If you'd like to sponsor team Hotbed with a donation, big or small, we'd be very appreciative. You can make your donations online here: Team Hotbed Donation Page

About Swim 4 Life
SurfAid’s core fundraiser, Swim 4 Life, is an opportunity to support SurfAid International in its effort to better the lives of the people in the Mentawai and Nias. The funds raised by Swim 4 Life will fuel the engine of change, helping 100,000 of the friendliest people on earth live happier, healthier lives.

About SurfAid
In 1999, physician and surfer Dr. Dave Jenkins went on a surf charter to the Mentawai Islands with one goal in mind: to find perfect waves. The surf proved to be everything he had hoped for. What he also found, though, were the Mentawai people---mostly women and children-–-suffering and dying from the ravages of malaria and other preventable diseases. Troubled by the inequity of lifestyles and moved by compassion, Dr. Jenkins went on to establish SurfAid International, a non-profit organization dedicated to the alleviation of human suffering through community-based health programs. With the support of the New Zealand and Australian governments, the global surfing community, and most importantly the Mentawai people of the affected areas themselves, SurfAid has come to exemplify the healing power of cross-cultural partnerships.

Together with an impassioned, motivated, and talented team of volunteers, staff, and supporters, the SurfAid journey has begun.

Visit the SurfAid Website

All is Lost Moment

2009-03-09T15:39:00.000-07:00

Hotbed Goes to Berlinale

2009-02-15T09:57:00.000-08:00

Unsu and Stokes in Berlin

Recently, Stokes and I made a resolution to hit 3 or 4 film festivals this year. We realized that our busy lives often made us forget why we make films in the first place. Going to film festivals is a good way to get out of our routine and immerse ourselves in an environment where films hold an almost supernatural power over people. It’s a good boost for any filmmaker’s ego.

We decided to hit the Berlinale first. Now in its 59th year, it takes place in February every year in the cultural metropolis of Berlin. It has a reputation for having a political slant, and this year was no exception. Some of the Q&A sessions were intense. At times, we felt like we were at a UN tribunal instead of a film festival. One audience member stood up and proclaimed that the film we just watched was “propaganda” and “an insult to my intelligence”. As a result, I have decided that I need to get PhDs in History and Political Science before submitting a political film to the Berlinale.

We watched 10 films over four days, chosen from a vast programme by dint of curiosity, chance, and instinct. This comfortable schedule left us enough time to drink lots of beer in between films (absolutely necessary for our emotions to recover and reset), and to discover some interesting things about Berlin, which we’ll cover in a future blog post.

The 10 films were:

[*] Mammoth (Sweden, Germany, Denmark)
[*] The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (USA)
[*] Beeswax (USA)
[*] Defamation (Israel, Austria, USA, Denmark)
Little Soldier (Denmark)
My Dear Enemy (South Korea)
Aguas Verdes (Argentina)
The Shock Doctrine (UK)
Rachel (France, Belgium)
[x] Absolute Evil (USA, Germany)

[*] Worth going out of your way to see
[x] Stay as far away from this film as you possibly can

Here are some non-professional reviews to give you a taste of the current direction of cinema.

MAMMOTH directed by Lucas Moodysson
A film about a family living in New York who have a Philippino nanny. Stars Gael Garcia Bernal and Michelle Williams. The film intercuts between New York, Bangkok (where the husband has to go to work), and the Philippines. It forces us to stop thinking about globalisation in abstract terms, and deals with its social impact at the level of the individual family. This film feels representative of our globe-trotting generation.The director’s Swedish background can be felt in the choice of music, and I could be imagining it, but the film was definitely moody. The characters could be going through the most ordinary, everyday ordeals, but it felt like it was going to be the end of the world. Cinema at its manipulative best.

PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE directed by Rebecca Miller
Huge cast that includes Robin Penn Wright as the lead, Julianne Moore, Maria Bello, Monica Belluci, Keanu Reeves, Alan Arkin and Winona Ryder. Rebecca Miller also wrote the screenplay, and she lives up to her pedigree as playwright Arthur Miller's daughter. It’s a really well-told story about a woman, Pippa Lee, who is married to an older man and trying to deal with her wild and crazy past. It's hard to pin down the one thing that makes the film seem fresh. It has lots of great dialogue, both witty and profound. There are some sexy scenes involving Pippa in her younger days. And there are fascinating revelations about her character, whose story arc goes from a disturbing childhood to a drug-ridden teenage existence to her present-day attempts at being the best mom and wife in the world.

BEESWAX directed by Andrew Bujalski
It may not be for everyone, but it’s worth checking out because it’s part of a new film movement called ‘mumblecore’. Beeswax has very naturalistic dialogue and doesn't really have an ending. It just kinda trails off. It’s set in Texas, and according to Stokes, the characters are very representative of people he grew up with. You feel like you’re just spending some time in the company of real people. The director was very articulate and poised during the Q&A. The funny thing was that a lot of the people asking questions rambled on and on, just like the film itself. The director refused to explain the meaning of the title.

DEFAMATION directed by Yoav Shamir
This is a documentary about anti-semitism. The filmmaker had incredible access to the Anti-Defamation League, which raises awareness about anti-semitism around the world, with questionable consequences. The filmmaker, who is from Israel, wants to know if anti-semitism is a real threat to his people, or if it’s possible that the threat has been overblown by various interest groups. He narrates and does all the interviews himself. He comes across as a fair-minded inquisitor wading into a sea of entrenched opinions. There wasn’t a dull moment in this film. The interviews were incredible, including a hilarious one with the filmmaker’s grandmother. The Israeli Ambassador was in the audience, and Stokes was worried we were going to get bombed.

ABSOLUTE EVIL directed by Ulli Lommel
Stokes and I walked out of this one, the only film we saw in the festival that justified such an extreme reaction. 40 years ago, the director appeared in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s first film, Love is Cold Than Death. This film was framed as a homage to that award-winning film. It was even shown in the same theatre as Fassbinder’s film. There the comparison ends. It was terribly shot on video, with a bad script and bad acting. I’ve seen better student films. It’s a shock that the Berlinale was presenting it. You know a film is bad when you can’t even learn from it’s mistakes. The title is the only appropriate thing about this film.

Burning Man Released on iTunes

2009-01-21T10:21:00.000-08:00

Hotbed's Confessions of a Burning Man is now available for download on iTunes. The film follows a wealthy heiress, a starving actress, an African American filmmaker Straight Outta Hunters Point and a rancorous New York-style cab driver as they attend the famed Burning Man Festival for the first time. The film was directed and produced by Hotbed's Unsu Lee and Paul Barnett. Go to iTunes - >

Hotbed is an Environment of Belief

2009-01-14T20:50:00.000-08:00

What is belief? It is all around us. It is the software that drives our brains. We have seen what happens when people believe in different things. We have witnessed religious wars, political gridlock, and man-made catastrophes. Yet despite all the negative effects of belief, we cannot choose not to believe. We all MUST believe in SOMETHING. At Hotbed, we embrace belief. It is the engine that runs the human species.

Back when we were in film school, Stokes and I came up with the name Hotbed, because it captured a lot of what we felt about the nature of creativity. That it thrives in certain environments, much like a plant, and that we had to figure out what these environments were. Throughout all the various mutations of Hotbed, this philosophy has remained intact. We got some things right, and other things wrong.

Today, we want to take what we learned about creativity, and apply it to belief. In fact, the two are very similar. What works for creativity often works for belief. There is a way to believe in things without becoming too dogmatic, without having to insist that the other person is wrong. This is the essence of creativity. We can take two things that normally don’t go well together, and create something new and exciting.

This is uncharted territory for us. As filmmakers, we have been driven by many passions – for images, structure, characters, drama, music, design, action and, of course, stories. Film gives us a vehicle to explore all these things. But ultimately, film should also be an environment in which to explore belief. To make a good film, one has to be able to see the world from each character’s perspective, even the villains. Otherwise, the film will not resonate with audiences. For all of us recognize that the world simply does not revolve around us. Each and every person on this planet is the main character of his or her own movie.

Our goal is to create films of such depth and power that they can somehow capture this new understanding of ourselves. We are an incredibly versatile species, and it would be a shame if we let this very strength be our downfall. Right now, our species needs to develop the ability to step back from what we are doing, and evaluate all beliefs on an equal basis, just as we do during a creative brainstorming session. And we must also be able to honestly speak out about what works for us, and what doesn’t, without worrying about hurting the other person’s feelings. That is the mark of a professional creator.

You might be surprised at hearing such sentiments coming from a tiny production company. But Stokes and I have always dreamed big, and we’ve always known that it’s not enough just to build a huge megaphone to speak to the world through. It’s what is said through that megaphone that’s really important. We don’t have the huge megaphone yet. We’re still working on that. But in the meantime, we think our time would be more productively spent on the ideas we want to use that megaphone for.

We’d like your help. We’d like to establish a dialogue about ideas that connect deeply to the world. Nothing could be more important during these troubled times. This is a start. Where it goes from here is anyone’s guess.

You can email either one of us at stokesmcintyre@hotbed.com and unsu@hotbed.com.

On Set

2009-01-14T20:32:00.000-08:00

Hotbed's Stokes McIntyre (left) directs for Eveo.

Ken Garcia Mentions Tony's Money

2009-01-06T21:36:00.000-08:00

Writer Ken Garcia includes Tony's Money in a SF Examiner column he wrote about the legendary Sam's Grill in San Francisco. Tony's Money will be directed by Hotbed's Stokes McIntyre and produced by Table 21's Peter Quartaroli. Read the article - >

A portion of Tony's Money has already been shot. View a clip - >

IP phones for Film Production

2008-12-28T19:56:00.000-08:00

We've switched to Voice over IP phones. We were on the old fashioned AT&T lines and the bill was outrageous. Now, our phones are IP and our bill is 50% cheaper. This is very important because the more money we save, the more money we can apply towards our feature film Valley of the Sun, which we intend to (mostly) self finance. Since 2003, we've run a lean shop to build our cash reserves. Our intention is to invest in our own work. For us, its all about the work. And while running a lean shop is a major part of building the capital necessary to produce our feature work, it wouldn't be possible without our clients. Our clients are our heroes. Our clients are making our feature work possible and as a result we strive to deliver the best work we can for our clients. We hope that our feature work will pay off in spades for our clients when we approach their work with the honed story and production skills that our feature work has taught us. So, forgive us if our phone sounds a little choppy. With the money we save, we can buy our starring role a really nice looking wig.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2008-12-28T07:05:00.000-08:00

Hotbed wishes you the best in 2009.

Battle on the Fresh Coast

2008-12-15T09:50:00.001-08:00

Former Hotbed intern Kyle Gray has completed his feature length documentary debut Fresh Coast, a documentary covering one of the most competitive battle scenes, the west coast. While Kyle isn't producing, directing and editing docs, he's creating "ill" motion graphics and visual effects for major motion pictures.

Check Fresh Coast
Check Kyle's work

Remember

2008-12-10T11:49:00.001-08:00

Work like you don't need the money.
Dance like no one is watching.
Love like your heart has never been broken.