It’s All About The Music

Craig Brewer, easily one of my favorite new filmmakers, is turning next to the web to create.

Thanks to HammertoNail for the post.

$5 Cover is now streaming for free online at mtv.com. They also have a blog that provides much more insight into the Memphis music scene.)

At the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, writer/director Craig Brewer (The Poor and Hungry, Hustle and Flow, Black Snake Moan) gave a sneak peak of his upcoming MTV web series down in the curtained basement of New Frontiers. $5 Cover is comprised of thirty eight-minute webisodes that feature a different Memphis musician going through a normal day leading up to the performance of a song. As in all of Brewer’s work, the true reality of living life on the edge of poverty is vividly conveyed and the struggle to make ends meet is inseparable from the struggle to create music.

The bite-size episodes (Brewer calls them ‘tracks’) combine reality-based drama with music performance in a tight compact form that often makes it feel like you are watching a mini-movie. This is due to the fact that the reality episode we witness is often a riff on the lyrics we hear the musician singing in the performance. In that sense each ‘track’ has a dramatic arc, which maximizes every minute with cumulative power as we gain more and more insight into both the artist and their lifestyle. By the time we get to the song performance we know the background of the lyrics because we have just lived through the musician’s life, which inspired the song.

Full Piece HERE.