Alejandro Adams's blog

Audience Aggregation via Twitter

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"Audience aggregation" is a horribly cold phrase, but the fact is that Twitter made it possible for me to interact with a handful of intelligent, satisfied viewers after the Migrating Forms screening of Canary on April 16th. The tweets appear below in chronological order.

Deleted Scene!

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Those who have seen Canary may be amused by the scene description I discovered in a notebook today.

Shot from inside car, couple arguing in driver and passenger seat, stop at red light, Canary agent in median scanning each car that stops. Agent scans driver, scanner buzzes (non-compliance). Agent pulls the man from car, woman nonchalantly moves into driver's seat.

Clearly the concept evolved during pre-production.

Not-So-Hidden Themes

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Doing 4x6 test prints of a 27x40 poster image. Looks like we'll have a nice full-size Canary poster to put on the poster wall at Cinequest.

Canary poster test

Interview - Brian Spaeth

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The first two interviews I've done for Canary have been in the form of rich, even provocative conversations with other filmmakers conducted on their personal blogs. The latest interview might be more self-revealing than the previous--I'm always surprised to find how much I have to say, regardless of what's asked. This new interview comes as a result of a recent networking blitz on Twitter. Thanks to Brian Spaeth for taking an interest in our film and for posting my answers without cuts. Brian advises his readers to put on their thinking caps before diving in, so I guess I should do the same.

Brian Spaeth interviews Alejandro Adams

Final Cut?

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Three drives marked with occult symbols copulate behind a chair which protects them from marauding young children. The secreted file will be transferred to HDCAM and delivered to Cinequest next week. This will be the exhibition "print," a de facto final cut. So, is the film done? It had better be.

Festival Invitation

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Cinequest has invited Canary for its 2009 festival, which is a big honor considering that we did not officially submit the film (no form, no fee). There is a strong possibility that we will accept the invitation, not least of all because they gave us a bit of red carpet treatment with Around the Bay--two high-profile Saturday night screenings at their best venue and a review in Variety, among other things. Their 2009 iteration will take place from 2/25 through 3/8 in downtown San Jose.

Interview - Oak Street Films

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An in-depth interview about Canary (and other things).

Review - Digital Poetics

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"Like the best 'little' films, Canary is a very big film...full of wonder and menace...[I]t is a film to be reckoned with, to be savored, and not to be forgotten."

http://professordvd.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/10/canary-alejandro-adams...

Carla, Basking

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It's never too early for promotion and never the wrong time to hear someone say, "What a knock-out performance."

Chattanooga-based filmmaker Jarrod Whaley interviews Carla Pauli at his site Oak Street Films, noting that he saw a working copy of Canary. His eagerness to talk it over with Carla speaks volumes, and I think she's a well-chosen representative of the forty-odd jaw-droppingly-good performances we managed to pack into this little epic.

Go, read, leave a comment. Please.

Indie-itis

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I saw Baghead yesterday, so I'll start with that.

Baghead is nearly perfect. It aspires to do little, but it manages to do more than most of the films in this era of no-budget films which conspicuously aspire to do little.

"This second feature by Alejandro Adams confirms him as an arresting talent. [Viewers] may be fascinated to the point of repeat viewings to sort out its myriad characters and half-buried clues."
-- Dennis Harvey, Variety


"Micro in budget, macro in ambition, accomplishment, and scope, Adams's slyly withholding film prompts multiple viewings--and deserves them."
-- Jim Ridley, Village Voice


"Wildly ambitious...an overwhelming and surprisingly fresh-feeling sense of dystopian dread."
-- Karina Longworth, Spout


"[CANARY is] terrific...very creepy and uncanny. It's quite an achievement."
-- Phillip Lopate


"Mysterious, elliptical, Bresson-like. [CANARY] is to biotech what PRIMER was to time-travel."
-- Richard von Busack, Metro


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