Author Archive for Admin

Page 2 of 2

Watch online: Mister & Missis.Sippi

The television documentary series “Mister & Missis.Sippi” that was broadcast on German television during the Easter holidays, is now available online via the library of its broadcaster 3sat. There are three parts of 45 minutes each that take its viewers on an entertaining journey by raft on the Mississippi, peeking into some true American backrooms. Please note: The show is available in German with only Interviewees speaking in English. And due to possible geo blocking it might be unavailable in non-German-speaking territories.

Part 1 – From St. Louis to Cairo
Part 2 – From Memphis to Vicksburg
Part 3 – From Saint Francisville to New Orleans

by Admin | April 12, 2010 | 0 Comments
Inspiration, Links, Travel and USA

A sign of life

It’s been a bit quiet around here lately. Not because we don’t have any more to say or write about. No, the reason is one of our other projects: FREMDKÖRPER (English Title: IMPURITY), the first feature length film produced by MovieBrats (that is: us). The film was made over the course of the last two years and finally has been completed till the end of March. Reason enough to have a party.

But as always, in the final weeks up until completion, you just put in all your energy, tweaking little details up until the last minute. So, that’s why THE AMERICAN BACKROOM had to be put on hold a for the last month or so.

But here we are again, re-shifting our energy from FREMDKÖRPER back to AMERICAN BACKROOM. We have a couple news in store for you as well as several important project updates to be announced soon.

In the meantime we’ve also been featured in the German newspaper Tagesspiegel, since AMERICAN BACKROOM is one of only a few 3D projects currently in production in and around Berlin, Germany (See, we didn’t even find the time to run a short note about that one *shakehead*). If you like to read the article (it’s in German only), that ran in the printed edition of the Tagesspiegel on March 9th, you can do so right here…

And to give you a little impression of FREMDKÖRPER, here’s the official trailer:


(YouTubeLink)

by Admin | April 2, 2010 | 0 Comments
General Stuff, Links and Production

Application for project development funding

So that’s it: Our first application for development funding for THE AMERICAN BACKROOM. As always up to the last minute, up until the moment the pick-up guy stood waiting in the door, we’ve been working on an application for project development funding with last minute changes and finishing touches. But finally: Send-off! Keep your fingers crossed! It’ll be about six weeks to get any results back…


(If video is not working, view on Facebook)

For those of you who wanna know a little more: An application like this doesn’t just include the application form, but also a detailed project description, a budget, a company profile, biographies and filmographies, a development plan, mood boards and images, letters of intent from crew and distributors and some other stuff… so that’s a 70 page application plus a DVD with work samples, a mood reel and a couple of our tilt-shift shots we did for testing last fall in the US. All in all you have to send in 16 copies of the whole package. Here you can get a little glimpse of our tilt shift shots. This is when we had just finished the DVD for the application and tested it in a stand-alone player…


(If video is not working, view on Facebook)

by Admin | January 19, 2010 | 1 Comment
Production

Los Angeles, Portrait of a City

Visual History at its best. A must-read: Los Angeles, Portrait of a City (Amazon Affiliate Link). Kevin Starr, Jim Heimann and David Ulin take more than 600 photographs on 570 pages to tell the history of greater Los Angeles. As can be expected from Taschen they did a marvelous job picking the pictures and putting them together. The whole book manages to convey (at least some of) the spirit of living in L.A. throughout the “ages” and to show even lesser-known aspects of the city as well as a couple of its rough edges. Flipping through it you’ll soon realize that there’s a lot more to the city of angels than what can be seen at the movies.

Head on over to Taschen where you can have a look inside the book. Or click here to order it through our Amazon affiliate link.

by Admin | January 11, 2010 | 0 Comments
Links, Research and USA

Featured Sponsor

by Admin | November 2, 2009 | Closed
General Stuff

Featured Sponsor

by Admin | October 19, 2009 | Closed
General Stuff

Bildergalerie Kentucky

by Admin | October 15, 2009 | 0 Comments
Images and Travel

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Alamo

Today we finally booked a rental car. After long hours of comparing quotes from different agencies we finally settled for you. Your quote just couldn’t be beaten by any of your competitors. We also realized, it’s not that easy to rent a car for a period of 61 days. But it’s possible with you, so thanks for that already. We’ve rented an intermediate SUV at a phenomenal rate of 1,900 dollars including all insurances, collission damage waivers and additional drivers! Good job, Mr. and Mrs. Alamo.

But that’s not the only reason I’m writing to you. I’m sure you can already guess that there is something I also wanna complain about.

Let’s talk about Alamo locations and their office hours in New York. I just can’t think of a reason, why Alamo does not run offices at any of the airports in the New York area. You know, we are not landing in New York City, but at the Newark Liberty Int’l Airport on the other side of the Hudson. If Alamo does not need to run an office in Newark, that’s fine. But what about JFK or LaGuardia? Nope. You can’t find Alamo anywhere near those. I mean, we’d be willing to travel across half the city, to get our rental car at JFK. But no. Would be pointless.

Not so in Manhattan: Obviously you need to have even six offices there! And almost all are located in rather close vicinity. What kind of business strategy is that? Or wasn’t enough left for the airports, after you paid all the rent in Manhattan?

I know what you are thinking right now: Better for us, since we won’t have to travel all the way from Newark to JFK.

I wish! But it’s even worse. We are landing in Newark shortly after 9 PM. By that time all your Manhattan locations are already closed for more than 3 hours! Not that you not only don’t run any airport offices in and around New York City, your office hours in Manhattan are not very helpful either! Monday thru thursday till 6 PM, saturdays only till 2:45 PM! In New York City. The Big Apple! Metropolis! Gotham City! N-E-W Y-O-R-K! The city that never sleeps, dammit. I am not even talking about Boise, Idaho, where by the way Alamo is operating till 9 PM seven days a week! And I remember getting rental cars from Alamo at far smaller airports even past midnight!

Not so in New York, always something special. What can I say? Now we need to take a cheap motel at the airport, leave at daybreak to finally get to our rental car in the heart of Manhattan

I better take another look at the rate we are paying, so I can’t be really mad at you, Mr. and Mrs. Alamo.

All the best from
THE AMERICAN BACKROOM

by Admin | September 26, 2009 | 0 Comments
Production and Travel

12,062 12,329 miles

(Clik here for larger map @ Google Maps)

EDIT: Three days old and had to be changed already…

Our research itinerary is going to take us roughly 12,000 12,300 miles across and back the United States. That’s what it says so far. We are going to tweak it here or there over the next couple days. And we are going to refresh it while we are going along, that’s for sure. Kind of a “live” update to the actual route we are taking. After all, you never know where certain stories or encounters will take you at the end of the day.

We’ll give the go-ahead on October 5, 2009 in Washington, DC.
And will be crossing the finishing line on December 5 in New York City.

Kudos and a big thank you! for some great advice and recommendations go out to some of the more experienced USA travellers here and here… That’s not to say we won’t be open for any more advice. So, keep ‘em coming.

by Admin | September 18, 2009 | 0 Comments
Research, Travel and USA

First!

Hey everybody, that’s it, the birthplace of a new and unique documentary film project: THE AMERICAN BACKROOM. We don’t wanna go into detail at this time, cause you can find anything – and we mean: ANYTHING – you need to know about THE AMERICAN BACKROOM somewhere on these pages. So go take a look.

Right now we are at the very beginning, but time’s already flying, since we set ourselves a release date in May 2012.

This blog will grow along with the project, informing about any development, success or backlash during the production. Apart from being a production diary we will also post related links and collect relevant information on the topic of THE AMERICAN BACKROOM.

Over time we will start here to fully develop the cross-media idea of our project. THE AMERICAN BACKROOM will not only become a documentary film, but this website will also grow into a comprehensive online resource and internet community on the film’s topic, hosting photos, videos, text and audio files. More to come on that later…

Until then, we hope that we have caught your attention and you will come visit from time to time.

If you like, what you see and read about our production, you too can become a part of THE AMERICAN BACKROOM: You can invest in our project and in return you get a slice of the pie… Just click here for more information.

by Admin | July 5, 2009 | 0 Comments
General Stuff