A little over three years ago, I decided I wanted to make a sci-fi short film about a robot trying to become human. My idea was to combine live action with miniatures and rod-puppetry – despite having no previous experience with special effects. Initial reactions from family, friends, and collaborators were of the “Are you insane?” variety – perhaps rightfully so. It was at that point I knew I had to make the film. What followed was an odd combination of luck, coincidence, and disaster – three ingredients that are rarely talked about, yet I’m convinced are completely inseparable from …

Despite legions of advice to the contrary, there is no quick-fix scheme toward making a feature film. What it really comes down to is creating a universal story and surrounding yourself with people who believe in your vision enough to see it come to life. Benh Zeitlin proves that to make a powerful film today, you don’t need gimmicks, a convoluted strategy, or even connections in the business. All you really need is a story so strong that it’s impossible not to make. The 30-year-old Zeitlin’s journey from short to feature is a true fairytale in the landscape of American indie …

Is it weird that I get excited when I spot a boom mic in a film? Is it strange that I feel a huge rush of excitement when I notice that cameraman’s reflection in a scene? When an actor fumbles his lines or when I catch an extra staring directly at the camera during a shot makes me feel warm and fuzzy on the inside? These moments are usually not intended by the filmmakers, but it is heartwarming to capture such mistakes on celluloid. Which brings me to my point. Don’t hide your flaws! This is the true magic of …

Lumière, Cohen, Zucker, Farley, Duplass, and Polish. All siblings in cinema. Are siblings just genetically inclined to be good partners? My sister Eva and myself are not your garden-variety filmmaking partnership. We’re brother and sister, bound by shared nature and nurture. We formally joined professional forces in 2003 and founded Last Ditch Pictures, now a full-service production company spanning the gamut: commercials and industrials and shorts, editing and scoring and visual effects, and — closest to our hearts and common circuitry — features. I sat down with my sister over the weekend, having just completed post production on our fourth …

Picking up from where we left off in our last article, we’re happy to announce that Days of Gray is in the can! So much has happened in the last six months, and here’s how we got there. We concluded an incredibly successful Kickstarter campaign in early June with a blow-out party at the Wooly (many thanks to all our backers who came out in droves and danced till the wee hours to the beats of Icelandic DJs!) We also held a very well-attended screening at the Scandinavia House showcasing previous works from Bicephaly Pictures as well as some of Hjaltalín’s music videos to give …

Independent films get made, and we cover them here at Filmmaker. But what about all the films that don’t get made? They have their own stories, and their stories can be as useful to other filmmakers as those of films that do actually hit the screen. After a brief Twitter poll, I’ve decided to invite several filmmakers who have been struggling, so far unsuccessfully, to make their films to discuss those projects here on the site. I’ll be interested in the films, the length of the development process, the avenues tried, and the possible reasons for the projects’ failure to …

Rambling On, an independent film interview show, is landing at Filmmaker. Produced by filmmakers Russell Costanzo and Melissa B. Miller (The Tested), the show gathers, roundtable style, producers, directors and actors to discuss their working practices. Here’s an excerpt from the duo’s previous episode, a roundtable with producers Sophia Lin (Compliance), Josh Mond (Simon Killer), Riva Marker (What Maisie Knew), Jared Goldman (The Magic of Belle Isle), and Michelle Ann Small (Gun Hill Road). The moderator here is Matt Patches from Hollywood.com, and this clip addresses a skill every producer needs to learn how to master: How — and when …

Rear projection, a technique that involves projecting a background image onto a screen behind your actors, is a technique that was popular in the 40s and 50s, particularly for shooting vehicle interiors. It wasn’t perfect; the image can seem washed out compared to the foreground actors making it easy to spot the technique, and rear projection requires a fairly large studio space. Rear projection has been mostly replaced, first by front projection, and by blue- and green-screen techniques. Even low-budget NLEs now include very good green-screen filters that produce excellent results; though it’s your technique when shooting the footage that …

Red Giant is known for their effects software, including Magic Bullet Looks, Colorista and Trapcode Particular. But they are also developing a name for themselves with a series of short films that are both entertaining and great demos of how-to-do effects on a budget. It probably doesn’t hurt that they also demonstrate how to use their software too! Director Seth Worley and Aharon Rabinowitz, director of Communities at Red Giant, spoke at a recent meeting of the Boston Creative Pro Users Group about the production of their latest short, Tempo. Worley first came to Red Giant’s attention when the company …

Dave Grohl has a history of fruitfully redefining himself. After Nirvana self-destructed, he went from being the former drummer for one the most momentous rock bands of the 20th century to being the frontman for one of the biggest acts of the 21st, Foo Fighters. So it shouldn’t seem too surprising to find him making a successful broad jump from musician to documentarian, especially with a project is as close to his heart as Sound City. Opening its doors in 1969, L.A.’s Sound City Studios was low on frills and gloss, but boasted an almost magical live-room ambience and a …