David Hudson

By Charlie bronson | July 31, 2008 @ 04:26 am

Tell us about your blog.

GreenCine Daily is not a blog people come to to read about movies; it's a blog people come to to find out where to read about movies. Yes, there are occasional dispatches from festivals and so forth, and I'll let an opinion slip every now and then, but primarily, the Daily's an aggregator. When it launched over four years ago, I would seek out film news and good reads; now, with a virtual, ongoing deluge of all that out there, I concentrate on filtering: selecting the best for the readership.

Who are your readers? Do you have much contact with the people who read you?

I do, but since I live in Berlin, a lot of that contact isn't face-to- face. That's why part of the fun of festivals like Berlin and SXSW is meeting and catching up with people I usually communicate with via email. And who are they? A lot of them are other film bloggers, naturally. Self-described cinephiles. But there's also a good solid base of people who work in the industry – theatrical and DVD distributors, festival programmers, movie theater owners and so on – and of course, film critics and filmmakers.

Tell us how – and why – you started your blog?

When GreenCine was founded over five years ago, we were hoping to launch a blog with the main service, which at the time was strictly online DVD rentals. But we were a relatively small team and getting the fundamentals of that service right naturally took priority. Once it was launched, the mission of the Daily was fairly straightforward: What would GreenCine members want or need to know about today? That's because, by that time, I'd already been posting news items at the main site. The blog gave me breathing room to expand those daily briefings, and it's been growing ever since. Now, an average of four or five new entries are posted each day, with one of those entries usually representing what's become of the briefings. These collections of "Shorts" have become monstrously bloated, despite all the filtering I do. The idea is not to read everything I point to, of course – that would be insane if it's not your full-time job, as it is mine – but to skim and spot the bold green names and titles you're most interested in finding out more about. Of course, one of the benefits of the blog is that it drives traffic to the main site, and I've been very, very fortunate that the GreenCine folks in the main offices in California have seen the value in it all this while.

Describe your blog day – do you work at home? Go to a café? Sit in an office?

"Blog day." I like that. Everyday is "blog day" at my place. Often enough, all day everyday, too. Yes, I work at home, and I'm lucky in another aspect here: Berlin is six hours ahead of New York, nine hours ahead of the West Coast. This gives me time to look over the papers and catch up with the newsier feeds and determine first whether or not there's an item that calls out for an immediate entry (e.g., a prominent filmmaker has died or there's a new opinion piece that's just screaming for attention). Otherwise, as I collect links, quotes, etc., I have several hours to get a feel for what the day's most important items are going to be before I start actually arranging them in entries and, once those entries are set, posting them. The Daily should be quick and up-to-date, but the idea is not to be first; even with the newsiest items, I'd like to be able to point to a few (preferably varying) reactions. When it comes to balancing timeliness and substance, I simply follow my intuition.

How do you find things to blog about and how do you decide what entries are worthwhile?

Two good questions. I've actually been thinking about, even worrying about that first one a lot recently. When I began blogging at the Daily, there weren't as many blogs and other publications online to keep up with, and I was able to concentrate on keeping things fresh by referencing sources film-lovers might not otherwise be tracking. To say now and then, Yes, cinephiles, occasionally The Economist or the New York Review of Books or Wired will have a piece we'll be interested in. Now, there are so many "necessary" stops along my daily rounds that I worry about the whole process becoming routine. I don't keep up with academic journals as much as I used to, for example, simply because I don't have the time to stop and ask myself, Where might I find something new, something off the beaten path (to further wear out a cliché) that I and Daily readers would be glad to know about? There's less and less time to explore and discover. So I've been pondering ways to make time for that again. But what to drop? There are, of course, only so many newspapers, magazines, news sites and, of course, RSS feeds any one person can regularly track each and every day. So I do weed out feeds and bookmarks now and then, but I've been thinking about getting a little more severe about it. As for the second question – what's a worthy item – again, it's mostly intuition. First, I have to find it interesting. Second, again, I have at least a vague feel for who the readership is, so I usually know if most readers will find an item interesting as well. And third, it's not always going to be strictly film-related. I take a cue from my favorite film critics, the ones who place a film within the overall context of the world that film is screening to. Sharp cinephiles are sharp people all around; Daily readers, I know, don't have tunnelvision, so if there's an event that'll have some impact on the culture at large – an announcement of the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, as just one example – it'll likely be noted at the Daily.

What is your favorite blog entry?

Oh, gosh. You know, there have been nearly 4000 of them, so it's hard to choose an all-time favorite. I do like, though, occasionally – all too rarely, I'm afraid – having the time to break out of the linking cycle and to write a few words of my own. In part because it's nearly always a surprise, and a pleasant one, to see readers speak up in response. Most recently, for example, I couldn't help but blurt out a response to the Guardian's Xan Brooks's post on Antonioni. This drew a few comments and I was a little taken aback to see myself quoted on other blogs I admire in the days that followed. Or an entry on Joe Swanberg's webisodic Young American Bodies drew comments and linkage as well (and possibly a gig writing liner notes for Benten Films' release of LOL on DVD as well). Otherwise, I'm always glad to have a few extra minutes to think about an entry's design. It's a very, very limited canvas, of course, but now and then, there's an opportunity to break away from the standard posters and stills. Nothing special, but still. Another kick: Juxtaposing radically different takes in an entry for one of those love-it-or-hate-it films.

What was your most popular/controversial blog entry?

We've had a few rumbles, but nothing like the knock-down-drag-outs you see at some other blogs. You know, blogs reflect the personalities of the bloggers behind them. Some bloggers come out swinging, and more power to them. If I had a personal blog, no doubt I would more often as well, but I see what I do for GreenCine as a sort of simplified form of curating or DJing, so to the extent that you see me at all at the Daily, it's more often indirectly, an outline of things I'm interested in rather than full frontal opinionating. But a couple of incidents come to mind. Way back in 2004, Jonathan Marlow presented a "Five-Point Plan" for improving the San Francisco International Film Festival. Even better than the storm of comments that followed was hearing that the festival was indeed listening and taking his points into consideration. Towards the end of 2006, an ongoing discussion of the film that would go on to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's The Lives of Others, broke out when I let out in an off-the-cuff remark that I actually quite liked the film. These were the two busiest entries where that occurred. Let me leap to say, too, that the discussion bore fruit: Andrew Grant (Filmbrain) did end up convincing me that the film is fatally flawed.

Is blogging the new path to fame and fortune?

If it is, someone please tell me how. More seriously, fame has become an extraordinarily relative term in our nichified age. I don't know how large the readership of, say, Daily Kos is, but those guys, they're famous. At least enough to draw the Democratic presidential candidates to their YearlyKos. And of course, countless other blogs have their dedicated fans. I can tell you, for example, that Cory Doctorow blogs at Boing Boing, but I'm afraid I've forgotten the name of last year's winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics. To a lesser extent, fortune, too, is relative. To be able to blog full-time? That's fortunate.

What separates journalism from blogging?

A lot. Despite some overlap, we should never, ever confuse the two, or worse, allow commentary, as valuable as it is, to squeeze out genuine investigative journalism.

Who are the bloggers that you read religiously?

Once again: Oh, gosh! I have about two dozen bookmarks I check each day and three or four "weeklies" for each day of the week. But of course, it's the RSS feeds that are overwhelming. Unfortunately, the number I've subscribed to is well over a hundred. Like I say, though, I'm about to do some pruning – just have decided yet how ruthless to be about it.

How has your life changed because of your blog? Has it gone in any new directions because of your newfound prominence?

Prominence? Ha! Flattery will get you nowhere. But yes, life's different. I've been a media junkie all my life, but now that the tap is always running, I'm pretty much "on the job" 24/7. A conscious, concerted effort (I have a family, after all) is often required to pry my fingers from the keyboard and get around a bit in the real world. Or you know, actually see some of these movies I blog about.