Puff of 1920's French salon smoke James Franco is in the midst of adapting two books of poetry for two different films. Stephen Dobyns' Black Dog, Red Dog will feature Olivia Wilde, Chloe Sevigny and Whoopi Goldberg, while Tar, by the great C.K. Williams, stars Mila Kunis and Jessica Chastain alongside Franco himself. Big stars, small budgets, lots of Tisch student participation.

Franco selected ten winners of a student film contest held at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts to head up segments of Tar, affording students the pretty incredible opportunity to work on a professional level. Franco said, "They all told me that they were so happy they did it ... the students are still at a place where they're pure, and they're not jaded." All very nice in theory, but in practice, well, they're still film students.

Producer Vince Jolivett said Tar has wrapped and could possibly premier at the Toronto Film Festival, while Black Dog is still being edited.

[Image via AP]