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Good Year for San Francisco 2011 was a pretty good year for San Francisco. Its vaunted Film Commission started an indie incubator, the Film Society continued its program of handing out $300,000 bi-annually and a good half a dozen Hollywood films shot some scenes here.
Meanwhile Hollywood North didn't do bad, three or four billion between Pixar and Lucas, indeed, the latter is about to release "Red Tails", about the all black Tuskegee air men. In point of fact, however, it was self-financed, produced independently of Hollywood. They turned him down because they can't sell an "all black" movie.
Slightly to the south, Google's YouTube is launching a series of fully produced channels, further garnishing it as the biggest television station in the world. Even the archivists are expanding: the Disney museum is doing well and there's agitation to establish a film museum downtown.
Of course, the recession slammed some members of the community and three esteemed organizations, Video Arts, Bayshore Studios and Kerner Optical, recently closed although there are rumors the latter will re-emerge under the tutelage of an old Hollywood North hand as both an "action miniature" studio and a school.
Video Arts, which started with one B/W Portapac in 1973 and grew into one of the premiere commercial and indie post-houses under the auspices of the personable Kim Salyer, fell victim to a paradigm shift. "We all used to post here," one documentary filmmaker told me at Video Arts' holiday party, always one of the season's best, "Then we all got Avid and Final Cut and finished here. And then we figured out how to finish at home and put our dear friend out of business."
At Bayshore Studio, after 17 years, owner Tom Banducci decided to close it. "I can’t thank all of you enough for all the support over the years," he noted, "I feel proud to have been a part of the Bay Area production community for so long and am grateful for all the friendships and smiles along the way."
Alas, that is the way of all flesh and even more furious in film/video. How about Ed Burns, who debuted in 1995 with "The Brothers McMullen", which was shot on film, won Sundance's Grand Jury Prize and grossed over $10 million? He's back with "Newlyweds" shot on a Canon Mach V for $9,000—one quarter the price tag of the "Brothers" which will show here this month.
Also opening this month is a Bengali film shot here last year. In his third outing, "Aparajita Tumi", director Aniruddha Roy Choudhury has turned his lens on the Bengali diaspora with Bengali hunk Prosenjit Chatterjee Prosenjit in the lead. In keeping with Hitchcock's assessment of environment, Choudhury said, "I always choose locations depending on the plot and the characters."
More locally, the San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking has begun a one year intensive program designed to prep people for a career in pictures and Lexi Laban has come on to helm the nationally know San Francisco Jewish Film Festival from the Art Institute of California and directing her award winning feature documentary, "Girl Trouble".
If SF can keep this mix of media, genres and accomplishments up for the next year 2012 should be bright.