The Editor's Blog

Contemplations and digressions from Filmmaker's Editor-in-Chief by Scott Macaulay

  • A young woman with a black bob haircut lies on a red bedspread in a black lace bra. She is sandwiched between two young men; the one to the right of her drapes his arm over her body, the left of her gazes at both of them with lust. Filmmaker‘s 20 Most Read Articles of 2023

    My annual exercise in what our audience — as well as our “audiences,” the latter term used to refer to the concoction of first and possibly last-time readers driven to our site by algorithmic determinism and SEO “best practices” — is always a mixture of the predictable and the unexpected. Regular features like our 25 New Faces series and Vadim Rizov’s survey of 35mm production always show up, as do articles by our excellent columnist Matt Mulcahey and podcaster Peter Rinaldi. I was particularly happy to see this year on the list two pieces that were especially deeply researched and…  Read more

    On Dec 28, 2023
    By on Dec 28, 2023 Columns
  • Some Thoughts on the Apple Vision Pro

    Each Friday I write an original Editors Letter as part of the free Filmmaker newsletter. Always original and not usually archived on the site, the letters consist of essays, thoughts, recommendations and sometimes even early versions of pieces that appear later here. This week I wrote about the Apple Vision Pro and am reposting that piece in updated form here. To subscribe for free to the Filmmaker newsletter, click here. If you watched any of Apple’s WWDC keynote on Monday, or saw any of its videos, and thought that its new AR headset, the Apple Vision Pro, looked like science…  Read more

    On Jun 10, 2023
    By on Jun 10, 2023 Columns
  • A mother wearing a flannel shirt with a slicked-back ponytail cradles her song in her arms, who is wearing a white tank top and gold chain necklace. Filmmaker Issue #122 Out Now (Along With a Flash Subscription Sale)

    Filmmaker‘s issue #122 is arriving in mailboxes and at newsstands now, and in conjunction we’ve launched a Spring Subscription sale until Sunday. For the first time, we’re discounting our print and digital subscriptions by 50%. A one-year digital subscription — which includes our archives back to 2007 — is just $5. In the US, a print subscription is just $9. Both subscriptions include access to all paywalled content as well as Filmmaker on Exact Editions, which offers fantastic browser and tablet reading. (Check out a sample issue here.) Your subscriptions help underwrite all of our editorial content, including on the…  Read more

    On Mar 29, 2023
    By on Mar 29, 2023 Columns
  • Filmmaker Seeks New Media and Audio Writers

    At Filmmaker, we are seeking freelance writers to cover new media — AR, VR, XR, the metaverse, AI-generated work, etc. — as well as audio (podcasts, etc). Opportunities exist for regular print columns as well as web columns and one-off web pieces. Ideal writers will have published writing samples and deep knowledge of these topics and be able to cover them from a Filmmaker style, which is to mix critical appraisals with insights into the production, technical and financing issues that affect both individual works and the respective fields. If you feel you qualify and would like to pitch or…  Read more

    On Mar 21, 2023
    By on Mar 21, 2023 Columns
  • an Asian woman with long black hair standing, arm outstretched, amidst a swirl of papers in an office The Filmmaker Guide to the Oscar-Winning Daniels

    Winners of the Best Screenplay and Best Picture awards at last night’s Oscars for their Everything Everywhere All at Once, the Daniels — Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert — have appeared in our pages many times over the years, with the various articles and interviews offering a historical timeline of the iconoclastic creators’ move from music video stars to celebrated feature directors. The two showed up first in 2015, in our 25 New Faces list, while they were in production on their first feature, Swiss Army Man. But we had already been knocked out by their music videos for the…  Read more

    On Mar 13, 2023
    By on Mar 13, 2023 Columns
  • GoFundMe Launches to Support Tarnation Director Jonathan Caouette’s Medical Expenses

    Jonathan Caouette, the director whose breakthrough experimental personal doc Tarnation (2004) has proved both tremendously influential but never really matched in terms of formal inventiveness and emotional intensity, is facing significant health challenges, and friends and supporters have launched a GoFundMe to help. Marie Therese Guirgis, Stephen Winter, Brian Kates, John Cameron Mitchell, and Gus Van Sant are behind the fundraiser, which is currently just over midway to its $60,000 goal. Treatment is occurring abroad, and funds raised will go towards “crucial surgeries and medical care, his outstanding medical bills, and his living expenses while he undergoes this long and delicate process…  Read more

    On Feb 11, 2023
    By on Feb 11, 2023 Columns
  • A black-and-white photo of 20-ish woman with short black hair and sunglasses on a city street. Filmmaker‘s 20 Most Read Posts of 2022

    As 2022 comes to a close, Filmmaker returns with our annual recap of the year’s most read posts. As I click through Google Analytics, this piece always becomes something of a revelation, a mixture of the predictable (our 25 New Faces list); the news-triggered (an old profile resurfacing on the director’s recent success, for example, or, more sadly, their passing); evergreen articles on filmmaking itself; and pieces for which strong content, aided by SEO and provocative headlines, meshed to attract an abnormally large slew of first-time readers. As in the past, the list is divided into two: the 10 most…  Read more

    On Dec 27, 2022
    By on Dec 27, 2022 Columns
  • Filmmaker Moves To Exact Editions for Digital Editions and Archive

    Filmmaker is proud to announce that we have moved our quarterly digital edition and archive going back to 2005 to Exact Editions, a London-based  company that specializes in digitizing content, selling subscriptions and providing streaming solutions across web, iOS and Android platforms. Our digital edition, which replicates our print edition, is now available to read via Exact Editions across browsers and mobile devices, the latter through a browser or the company’s Exactly app, found in the App and Google Play stores. As a long-time reader of other publications using Exact Editions, I’ve admired the company’s elegant, easy-to-use platform. Issues download quickly, can…  Read more

    On Sep 12, 2022
    By on Sep 12, 2022 Columns
  • A middle-aged white man in a black shirt and tan jacket holding a drink Film Writer and Curator Travis Crawford, R.I.P.

    Film writer and festival curator Travis Crawford, who worked extensively with various home video labels in the restoration of classic foreign-language, independent and genre work, died this week, I was saddened to learn via social media. He was 52. Crawford, who for many years curated the Philadelphia Film Festival’s Danger after Dark series, wrote extensively for Filmmaker over the years, predominantly in the late aughts and early ’10s, when he headed up the print magazine’s “Load and Play” columns. His pieces on Brian De Palma’s Blow Out, David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, and the seven-disk Criterion box-set, American Lost and Found:…  Read more

    On Jul 22, 2022
    By on Jul 22, 2022 Columns
  • Filmmaker Announces Spring Subscription Sale: 40% Discounts Plus Bonus Prizes

    Filmmaker‘s once-a-year subscription sale launches today, with 40% discounts on our print and digital subscriptions. Filmmaker will be raising its cover price next issue, so this will be the last chance to lock in our old (and very reasonable!) pricing. All subscribers during this sale will receive Filmmaker‘s upcoming Spring issue and will be eligible for a selection of bonus gifts — Blu-rays, box sets and swag from a number of top distributors. In addition, all new and returning subscribers will receive a free three-month subscription to Metrograph, which includes discounts to its New York theater as well as access…  Read more

    On Mar 11, 2022
    By on Mar 11, 2022 Columns
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