''The F Word'' is a hybrid fiction/documentary feature film from 2005, directed by Jed Weintrob and produced by Christian D. Bruun and Nick Goldfarb. The film was selected to world premiere at the 2005

Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive programming. Tribeca was f ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

Plot

Joe Pace is a radio personality whose program, ''The F Word'', is being shut down by the U.S.

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...

(FCC) after racking up over $1 million in unpaid indecency fines. On his last day on the air, which coincides with the last day of the 2004 Republican National Convention, Joe sets off to broadcast his own one-man march through Manhattan.

Style and structure

Combining fictional scenes - written by over thirty different writers - set among actual protests with documentary footage of people Joe meets along the way, the film weaves together a seamless narrative. In a uniquely interactive writing process, each day new scenes were written and appropriated to upcoming events and in response to the previous day's footage. It is often impossible to tell the difference between fiction and reality. The concept is loosely inspired by

Medium Cool ''Medium Cool'' is a 1969 American drama film written and directed by Haskell Wexler and starring Robert Forster, Verna Bloom, Peter Bonerz, Marianna Hill and Harold Blankenship. It takes place in Chicago in the summer of 1968. It was notab ...

Haskell Wexler Haskell Wexler, ASC (February 6, 1922 – December 27, 2015) was an American cinematographer, film producer, and director. Wexler was judged to be one of film history's ten most influential cinematographers in a survey of the members of the Inte ...

. The film was shot by cinematographer Christian Ditlev Bruun and Heather Greer on two main cameras at 24 frames/second, as well as several other video formats for b-roll. The film was unconventionally color corrected and composited using several different types of

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

as well as in-camera adjustments creating a unique, photographic expression. Motion graphics, titles, and color grading as well as the official poster and website was designed by Christian D. Bruun.

Cast

Josh Hamilton Joshua Holt Hamilton (born May 21, 1981) is an American former professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as an outfielder from to , most prominently as a member of the Texas Rangers teams that won two consecutive Americ ...

stars along with

Edoardo Ballerini Edoardo Ballerini (born March 20, 1970) is an American actor, narrator, writer, and film director. On screen he is best known for his work as junkie Corky Caporale in ''The Sopranos'' and the hotheaded chef in the indie film '' Dinner Rush'' (2 ...

Zak Orth Zak Orth (born October 15, 1970) is an American actor known for his roles in ''Wet Hot American Summer'', '' The Baxter'', '' Melinda and Melinda'', '' In and Out'', ''Music and Lyrics'', and '' NYC 22''. He also starred in the NBC television dram ...

Sam Rockwell Sam Rockwell (born November 5, 1968) is an American actor. He is known for appearing in independent films and also as a character actor portraying a wide variety of roles both comedic and dramatic in films such as '' Lawn Dogs'' (19 ...

Callie Thorne Calliope "Callie" Thorne is an American actress known for her role as Dr. Dani Santino on the USA Network series '' Necessary Roughness''. She is also known for past work such as her roles on '' Homicide: Life on the Street'' as Detective Laura ...

, Waris Ahluwalia,

Yul Vazquez Yul Vazquez (born March 18, 1965) is a Cuban-American actor and musician. He has appeared in '' Runaway Bride'' (1999), ''Bad Boys II'' (2003), ''War of the Worlds'' (2005), '' American Gangster'' (2007), ''The A-Team'' (2010), '' Captain Philli ...

and others, including many leaders of the protest movement: Reverend Billy,

Peter Camejo Peter Miguel Camejo Guanche (December 31, 1939 – September 13, 2008) was a Venezuelan American author, activist, politician and Sailing Olympian. In the 2004 United States presidential election, he was selected by independent candidate Ralp ...

John Perry Barlow John Perry Barlow (October 3, 1947February 7, 2018) was an American poet, essayist, cattle rancher, and cyberlibertarian political activist who had been associated with both the Democratic and Republican parties. He was also a lyricist for th ...

Technical information

The film's main cameras were two Panasonic AG-DVX100(b) video cameras, filming at 23.976 fps with

Advanced Pulldown In video technology, 24p refers to a video format that operates at 24 frames per second (typically, 23.976 frame/s when using equipment based on NTSC frame rates, but now 24.000 in many cases) frame rate with progressive scanning (not interlaced). ...

. A few additional shots were filmed on other DV cameras using various pulldown techniques in

Adobe After Effects Adobe After Effects is a digital visual effects, motion graphics, and compositing application developed by Adobe Inc., and used in the post-production process of film making, video games and television production. Among other things, After Eff ...

. The film was edited using

Final Cut Pro Final Cut Pro is a series of non-linear video editing software programs first developed by Macromedia Inc. and later Apple Inc. The most recent version, Final Cut Pro 10.6.4, runs on Mac computers powered by macOS Big Sur 11.5.1 or later. The ...

, the title sequence and all visual effects - created by Christian D. Bruun - were done using Adobe After Effects. The film was on-lined and output to HD using and Avid Symphony system.

Release

''The F Word'' premiered on April 26, 2005 at the Pace Schimmel Center in official competition at the Tribeca Film Festival. The film premiered on IFC TV on November 6, 2006 and was re-released on

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...

and re-premiered on IFC TV May 4, 2008.The F Word on IFC
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References

External links

Official website
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Review By Matthew Gilbert, Boston GlobePopmatters.com review 2008The F Word @ IFCReverend BillyeJournal CanadaTribeca Channel
{{DEFAULTSORT:F Word 2005 films American independent films 2005 documentary films American documentary films Documentary films about American politics Films about freedom of expression 2000s English-language films 2005 independent films 2000s American films