trailer: http://www.rizemovie.com/main_site/index.php
official site: http://www.rizemovie.com/main_site/index.php

amazing. it's a documentary about south central kids and how dancing saved them from drugs/gangs/death. they talk about the gangs around them, about how their family is involved with drugs/gangs, about the domestic violence, and how the only thing they have to escape is clownin/krumpin.

i kept seeing it in videos but didn't know the name. Skinny Puppy had it in one of their videos, and Chemical Brothers in Galvanize. I also see it in like Missy Elliot videos, i kept wondering what the name must have been because a lot of people did it. Black Eyed Peas does some of it too. In that video Hey Mama.

the music is amazing, and these kids all dance because they don't want to die or end up with a ****ty life. it's pretty great. and funny.

the editing is AMAZING. like the Battlezone, everyone in the theatre was yelling, clapping, hollering just like the people in the stadium in the movie. and it goes from moments of laughter and happiness to pain and loss. really good pacing in the documentary.

my favorite part is one of the kids talking about clownin and he says something like: "i didn't really have a choice, i was born into it" and it start s to show traditional African dancing where the males paint their faces and have fighting dances. and then it shows the kids in L.A. painting their faces and have their "fighting" dances.

if you go to the offfical site, click on trailers, and then on the right hand side click on Music Video to see clips from the Battlezone. it was intense.

i was reading the credits at the end, and as it turns out, i know the director of photography for it. i gotta email him and let him know how amazing it was. so ocnsider this free publicity for him, since he was very nice to me when i met him. it was shot beautifully, and not really shot how you think a documentary should be shot. (there's quite a few shots that are in there because they're pretty, not necessarily expository)

They cut that film at the post house where I usually work. The editor's a great guy.

-Chris
Studentfilms.com

two degrees of separation.

i wonder if one day i'll direct a project, susser will shoot it, and you will edit it.

The director of Rize, David LaChapelle, has produced some of the most unique and colorful ads and photolayouts. I got a giant book of his stuff for Christmas, so I'm really looking forward to seeing this. Wonder if his still photography style crosses over into his films?

He has pictures of his portraits on his site (some contain mild nudity though...)

you can't really tell it's a LaChapelle movie until the end when he has the people dancing in slow motion in body oil with bright lights on them. that's about the only LaChapelle thing that happens in it.

i saw the trailer pretty early and got excited about the movie, but then was reading some african american blog sites and they were ripping it pretty hard, saying it was just a movie for white people about "how hard life is" and all that. i'm wondering what the demographic here is, just out of curiosity. i do plan on seeing the movie anyway.