Clapboard Jungle Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		5.0
Overall		4.0

Clapboard Jungle Blu-ray Movie Review

Justin time.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 14, 2021

Justin McConnell, the guiding light behind and frequent on screen presence in The Clapboard Jungle (which features the telling subtitle Surviving the Independent Film Business on its IMDb page) admits early on in this often fascinating documentary that he is most likely someone you've never heard of. And in fact I personally didn't think I had heard of McConnell before receiving this film in my review queue, though I realized after looking at McConnell's IMDb credits page that among other positions, he evidently served as cinematographer on The Waxwork Chronicles, which I called "a topnotch retrospective" in my now long ago Waxwork Blu-ray review. More people may actually be aware of Lifechanger, a 2018 feature film that McConnell wrote, directed and co-produced (along with perhaps providing craft services, and, yes, that's a joke), which turns up in Clapboard Jungle as it details getting an independent film made in general and McConnell's trials and tribulations in the movie industry in particular. Clapboard Jungle probably offers hope and various cautionary tales in about equal measure, and it charts the course of several years of McConnell's life, which, kind of ironically given its "detour" into Lifechanger territory, actually spends a good deal of time dealing with McConnell's attempts to adapt Douglas Borton's novel Kane into a feature film.

The "synchronicity gods" are once again keeping busy drawing unexpected connections between films that have shown up relatively recently in the pile of discs assigned to me to offer my thoughts about. Just yesterday, in fact, I posted our Tales of the Uncanny Blu-ray review, and that documentary about so-called horror anthologies offers a host of talking heads, several of whom also show up McConnell's piece (it's probably no coincidence in a way, since horror seems to be the regular entry into filmmaking for many independent minded types). And just a few weeks ago, Cohen's release of Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema provided me with several days of fascinating viewing as it charted the sometimes rocky history of females attempting to make films. Perhaps surprisingly, Clapboard Jungle also delves into this aspect as one of several sidebars to the main focus.

It's perhaps salient to note that Clapboard Jungle actually starts with a man few would probably think of as a traditional "independent filmmaker", Guillermo del Toro, who talks about his love of the actual craft of making a film, and his absolute hatred of selling a completed "product" (even the use of the word "product" would probably be met with umbrage by del Toro). Kind of tangentially if relevantly, I seem to remember del Toro in his Academy Award acceptance speech for Best Director for The Shape of Water forcefully stated, "Growing up in Mexico, I thought this could never happen. It happens. And I want to tell you, everyone who is dreaming of a parable of using genre fantasy to tell the things that are real in the world today, you can do this. This is a door. Kick it open and come in." While the "genre fantasy" aspect may not be totally germane to what McConnell goes through in Clapboard Jungle, the documentary offers more than ample evidence that enterprising filmmakers can assault various "doors" with any number of tools at their disposal, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will give way and let them in, as even McConnell seems to realize and overtly mentions at various points.

This piece is going to be a great primer for anyone still suffering from "rose colored glasses" syndrome with regard to any dreamed of career in the movies, and aside from the many valuable comments from those who have already (kinda sorta?) "made it" in the industry, there's the often weirdly captivating sight of McConnell experiencing that flat out commerce side of things like the Cannes Film Festival, which certainly tends to emphasize the "business" side of show business. It's also maybe pertinent to note that while this documentary offers a quasi-happy ending (or at least happy middle) with regard to the appropriately named Lifechanger, on the reality check side of things, the IMDb is still listing Mark of Kane as only "announced".

Clapboard Jungle Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Clapboard Jungle is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Arrow's insert booklet contains only the following fairly generic verbiage about the transfer:

Clapboard Jungle is presented in its original 1.78:1 aspect ratio with 5.1 sound. The High Definition master was provided by Unstable Ground.

As can probably be made out in some of the screenshots accompanying this review, the "fly on the wall" status of some of the sequences lead to what looks like pretty low res capture at times, but that situation aside, the bulk of this presentation is nicely sharp and well detailed. The bulk of the interview segments offer commendable fine detail levels and an appealingly natural looking palette. Even some of the "travelogue" segments, notably some scenes of Amsterdam, offer good detail levels and generally fine clarity, but there are other global stops where things can look considerably more ragged, depending on how the imagery was captured. I noticed no compression anomalies.

Clapboard Jungle Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

While Clapboard Jungle is granted a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, probably unsurprisingly it may seem relatively unnecessary, given the documentary's emphasis on interview segments and what amount to first person confessionals by McConnell. There are occasional moments where the soundstage can open up, at least relatively speaking, including some of the festival material and a few outdoor scenes. Fidelity is fine throughout, and all spoken material is delivered without any problems whatsoever. Optional English, Spanish and Catalan subtitles are available.

Clapboard Jungle Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentaries

  Guest commentary / panel discussion with Barbara Crampton, Richard Stanley, John McNaughton, Gigi Saul Guerrero and Adam Mason

  
  

  Director's Commentary with Justin McConnell.

  
  

  Crew Commentary with Justin McConnell, co-producer Darryl Shaw, executive producer Avi Federgreen and editor/associate producer Kevin Burke

• Deleted Scenes (HD; 26:56) feature optional commentary by Justin McConnell. There's also an introduction by McConnell.


• Extended Interviews (SD; 5:02:19) offers an almost insane aggregation of additional interview segments, as evidenced by the length of all of these together. Nearly thirty interviews are offered.


• Bonus Documentaries feature some of McConnell's other work:

  Working Class Rock Star (SD; 1:34:39) offers portraits of supposedly "successful" musicians who nonetheless have their own version of the daily grind to get through. This features an optional commentary by Justin McConnell.

  
  

  Skull World (SD; 1:40:27) This features an optional commentary by Justin McConnell.

• Short Films (SD; 1:04:37) offers thirteen early films by McConnell. These feature both optional commentaries by Justin McConnell as well as an Introduction (HD; 1:07).


• Trailers

  Clapboard Jungle - Official Trailer (HD; 1:57)

  
  

  Clapboard Jungle - Indiegogo Video (SD; 2:53)

• Photo Galleries

  Production and Artwork Gallery (HD; 16:30) allows for Manual Advance but is authored for Auto Advance.

  
  

  Festivals and Travel Gallery (HD; 16:30) also allows for Manual Advance but is authored for Auto Advance.

Additionally, Arrow provides its typically nicely appointed insert booklet, this one with crew information, the short blurb about the transfer, and an essay called How to make It in the Movie Business by Brian Yuzna. Yuzna is just one of several talking heads who show up in both this documentary and the above referenced Tales of the Uncanny.

Clapboard Jungle Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Clapboard Jungle may well be indispensable for any younger people out there considering a career in the movie business, but it also teaches lessons for anyone seriously committed to their "art", whatever that may be. As the documentary makes distressingly clear, though, there's an almost Odetsian dialectic between "art" and "commerce" that complicates matters, and attempting to wend your way through that labyrinth can be an exercise in frustration if not outright futility. With an understanding that there are some lo-res moments on display, technical merits are solid, and Arrow has provided a veritable glut of supplementary material. Recommended.