We are delighted that our documentary film ‘The Liberties’ has been selected to screen at the Irish Reels Film Festival 2010. The festival will take place March 12th -14th in Seattle, Washington. Now in it’s twelfth year, the festival aims to showcase ‘a wonderful collection of refreshing and exciting new works in Irish cinema.’ ‘The Liberties’ screens on Saturday, March 13th at 12:00pm at the Seattle Center.

Further information on the festival can be found here:
http://www.irishreels.org/

You can now buy ‘The Liberties’ on DVD here: http://www.whereistheliberties.com/

As part of an ambitious work plan for the 2010 European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion, EAPN Ireland plans to coordinate and implement an innovative awareness raising campaign based on the stories and experiences of people experiencing poverty and social exclusion.

EAPN Ireland recently chose to work with Areaman Productions to develop viral video content that will underpin and promote the campaign. We are looking forward to producing video content that will be thought-provoking & effective in communicating the key messages of the campaign.

Later this month, ‘The Liberties’ will screen in NYC. Areaman Productions’ documentary film on the historic Dublin neighbourhood known as ‘The Liberties’, has been chosen to screen as part of the Irish Arts Center Film Series, Spring 2010. Located in the heart of Manhattan’s historic “Hell’s Kitchen”, the Irish Arts Center is one of the largest Irish cultural organizations in the United States. In December 2009, the Irish government announced that it was to immediately grant $3.5 million (€2.3 million) towards construction of a new Irish Arts Center. Ireland’s contribution is one part of a funding jigsaw which also includes a $12 million site (€8.37 million) and an almost $8 million (€5.6 million) capital grant from the City of New York.

The Irish Arts Center has a rich heritage. Since 1972, the Center has offered a cultural home away from home for such cultural luminaries as Robert Ballagh, Marie Jones, Jimmy Murphy, Mark O’Rowe, Ronnie Drew, Mike Hanrahan, The Chieftains, The Nualas, Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, Terry George, Eamon O’Doherty, Donal O’Kelly, John F. Kennedy, Jr., Milo O’Shea, Jim Sheridan, Gabriel Byrne, Liam Neeson and many, many more.

Still image taken from 'The Liberties'

Directed by Tom Burke and Shane Hogan, ‘The Liberties’ is the film equivalent of a portrait gallery, a series of twelve beautifully crafted short films, each focusing on a different character in Dublin’s south inner-city: the man who raised seven daughters in a two bedroom flat; the stone sculptor set to retire after sixty years; evangelical church bingo; and the Oscar-winning actress who would live nowhere else.

The screening of ‘The Liberties’ will take place on Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at 8:00 pm. Admission: $10 general sale/ $8 members. Free for Sponsor ($125) members and higher. To buy click here or call 212 868-4444. Further US screenings will be announced shortly.

‘The Liberties’ documentary can be purchased on DVD from: www.whereistheliberties.com

The Pobal National Conference, ‘Life is for Learning, Learning is for Life’ takes place in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin on Thursday 21st January 2010.

Areaman Productions were commissioned by Pobal to make a 15 minute film on Irish people’s experiences of learning, that will be screened at the event. In making the film, we spoke to people of all ages and of varying backgrounds from across Ireland about their experiences of ‘lifelong learning’.

Lifelong Learner Smiling

The conference is being organised and delivered with the support of a large range of contributors and organisations. It is primarily focused at policy and decision makers/influencers, Directors, CEO’s, managers of organisations and academics. The closing address will be delivered by Mr. Fergus Finlay, CEO, Barnardos.

It was a certain Graham Linehan who first put us on to Shadowplay, the ultimate cineaste blog. Its author, DCairns, has forgotten more about niche cinema, B-movies and hidden gems than Martin Scorcese has ever known. The blog is as wide ranging as it is prolific with Cairns reserving particular love for early Hitchcock, Powell and Pressburger, Orson Welles and a seemingly endless parade of curiosities from 20’s and 30’s cinema pulled from some magical vault.

Of particular interest to Areaman was his recent post on David Lynch and his influences from the world of film. Lynch began his career as a painter and conceptual artist and was never formally trained in filmmaking. It is the director’s often stated claim that he is not influenced greatly by other movies which Cairns takes issue with in his post. He cites a series of noirs and mainstream titles (Yojimbo, Kiss Me Dealdly, The Wizard of Oz) which Lynch either borrows from or makes reference to across his own output.

With particular reference to Twin Peaks, Cairns details the show’s final episode and the likely influence of Tales of Hoffman, with nods to Fellini and The Prisoner.

We would humbly suggest that there is a more fundamental cinematic influence at play from the very beginning of the series which begins the morning after the death of Laura Palmer. Otto Preminger’s 1944 film “Laura”, is a fairly low rent noir starring nobody of note but perfectly serviceable for a rainy Saturday afternoon. The movie opens the morning after the death of Laura, who we never see, but whose character is revealed to us through the series of people who are giving evidence to the police investigating her death. As with Laura Palmer, this Laura seemed to have a different persona for everyone in her life. As with Twin Peaks, the Laura character is present in many of the scenes in the form of a large, dominant portrait hanging above the fireplace in her home where much of the film takes place. The obvious echo here is the prom queen photo of Laura Palmer which seems to permeate the entire first season of Twin Peaks. It is no co-incidence then that the detective played by Dana Andrews gets his first big break in the case through a dream.

Certainly worth a view for fans of Twin Peaks. Akin to watching L.A. Takedown after having seen HEAT.

The original article by DCairns is here: http://dcairns.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/the-naked-lynch/

You can follow him on Twitter too: @dcairns

Kavaleer Productions in association with Areaman Productions, recently completed work on an interactive game for South Dublin County Council. The game called ‘Jobot’s Access All Areas’, communicates an awareness of the importance of accessibility of buildings, for people with disabilities. The game was designed, storyboarded and developed by Kavaleer Productions, in response to a brief by South Dublin County Council and Areaman Productions.

In 2009, Areaman Productions produced a series of video access guides which outlined recent improvements in the accessibility of public buildings and services across South Dublin County. With the launch of ‘Jobot’s Access All Areas’, Areaman Productions and Kavaleer Productions have helped South Dublin County Council demonstrate their continuing commitment to improving access and service provision to disabled people in South Dublin County.

Kavaleer Productions developed the game concept to include a robot character called ‘Jobot’ to help make the game more informative and accessible for all users. ‘Jobot’ is a boxy maintenance robot who has been hired to do some repair work on a Heritage House in South Dublin. As he’s on wheels and is the width of a wheelchair, he’s finding it hard to get into the building to do his work. Players are asked to make accessibility improvements to the Heritage House that make the exterior and interior more accessible to everyone.

‘Jobot’s Access All areas’ will be available to enjoy soon from South Dublin County Council’s Disability Access Service website: http://accessible.southdublin.ie/

Areaman Productions are happy to announce 3 new screenings of our feature documentary ‘The Liberties’ as part of the Access Cinema initiative.

Still image taken from 'The Liberties'

Details of the screenings:

1. Riverbank Arts Centre, Newbridge, Co.Kildare.
Date: Monday 25/01/10 (Followed by Q&A with Tom Burke and Shane Hogan) www.riverbank.ie

2. The Seamus Ennis Arts Centre, Naul, Fingal, Co.Dublin.
Date: Thur 25/02/10 www.seamusenniscentre.com

3. Axis Ballymun Arts and Community Centre, Balymun, Dublin 9.
Date: Monday 26/04/10 www.axis-ballymun.ie

‘The Liberties’ documentary can be purchased on DVD from: www.whereistheliberties.com

We live in interesting times. Early last year, Areaman started shooting with the Letus Extreme lens adaptor. In front of the Letus, we were able to mount our Nikon lenses, some of which date back to the 1970s, and behind the Letus sat our Sony PMW EX1. This marriage of a filmic aesthetic and a tapeless workflow was put into practice for our documentary ‘The Liberties’ which was filmed in 2008 and completed in 2009. Our film benefited hugely from these technologies born decades apart: sturdy, uncoated Nikon glass with apertures going all the way to f1.4, and HD 1080p at the back end recording onto 16GB SxS memory cards.

But of course, Stanley Kubrick did it first. As he was preparing to shoot Barry Lyndon, he was adamant that he would film on location using available light in so far as possible. This even extended to filming scenes by candlelight so as to be true to a recreation of a world in which there was no such thing as electrical light. His solution was to similarly match old and contemporary visual technologies, in his case, a Mitchell BNC camera and a Zeiss lens with a maximum aperture of f0.7.

The article below is a wonderfully unfussy account of how it all happened.

http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/sk/ac/len/page1.htm

*note: Areaman Productions are in no way comparing themselves to Mr Kubrick in the above post, merely acknowledging his significant influence.

140 Characters

Following the premier of ‘140 Characters’ in Meeting House Square as part of Innovation Dublin, the Digital Hub Development Agency have invited Digital Hub companies to a screening of the film on November 25th in The Auditorium, in Digital Exchange from 1-2pm. The film (33 mins) will be introduced by Tom Burke and Shane Hogan. An audience Q&A will follow the screening.

To register for this event, please email exhibit@thedigitalhub.com with your name, email address and the company you work for and we will be in touch. For information on the film please see www.140characters.ie