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The Editor's Blog
Contemplations and digressions from Filmmaker's Editor-in-Chief by Scott Macaulay
Filmmaker’s Summer 2020 Issue is Online and Available for Purchase
Fox and Rob Rich in Time (Courtesy of Sundance Institute) As previously announced, Filmmaker‘s Summer 2020 issue is being published as a PDF, and it’s now online and available for single-issue purchase. It’s our largest page-count ever (244 pages!), and our designers, Caspar Newbolt and Charlotte Gosch, tweaked the whole design to make it a beautiful and comfortable experience on both a tablet and a laptop in either portrait or landscape view.
For the first time, we’ve also enabled the issue to be purchased individually as a PDF for $5.95, and you can do that by clicking here or on the button below using PayPal or your credit card.
On our cover is Garrett Bradley’s masterful documentary Time, forthcoming from Amazon Studios. As I wrote in my Sundance preview, it’s a stunning film that with insight and purpose earns the stark gravity of its title: “Time is both carceral—a tool of the State—and Bergsonian in this transportingly emotional, urgent work.” Ashley Clark, who curated last year’s Bradley retrospective at BAM, did the insightful and in-depth interview, in which Bradley both contextualizes the film within her overall project as well as maps it to the current moment. “Every revolution introduces a new set of symbols, new iconography, a modification of genre,” she says. “This happens both within the movement and its aftermath.”
Our other interviews include Chris Boeckmann speaking with directors Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss about their Sundance hit, Boys State; Aaron Hunt talking with Spike Lee about Da 5 Bloods; Kelly Reichardt in conversation with Michael Almereyda about his imaginative biopic Tesla; Daniel Christian with the Ross Brothers about their woozy Bloody Noses Empty Pockets; and me interviewing writer/director Amy Seimetz and actress Kate Lyn Sheil about the eerily of-the-moment She Dies Tomorrow
In our long-form articles, Sara Rafsky uncovers the impressive security protocols used by David France and his team on Welcome to Chechnya; Mitch McCabe talks with seven documentary filmmakers about the various issues — aesthetic, economic and career — involved with shooting their own non-fiction films; and I write about how film schools handled this past Spring’s lockdowns and how they’re approaching the year ahead. (Speaking of film schools, with the valued help of Adam Schartoff, we return with our annual film school guide — a listing of U.S. film schools, their vital details, and most with statements about their upcoming Fall semester.
Our Reflections section features Pandemic Diaries — almost 30 directors, writers, DPs, editors and other film workers weighing in on creative, political, personal and social issues experienced during the quarantine. These were collected from April through mid-June, and reflect the range of events, analysis, protest and emotion of these months, from the shutdown orders to the killing of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matters protests. Also in our Reflections section, Miasarah Lai, Violete Ayala and Claire Cao on how BIPOC documentary professionals are responding to the pandemic and protest movement in their own professional practices. And Maya E. Rudolph talks to Chinese independent filmmakers about life in lockdown and the future of online screenings.
Summer is when we cover television, and we have three strong pieces, led by Matt Mulcahey’s article on the darkness of Netflix’s Ozark — dark as in literally, visually dark, a look that’s enabled by their use of HDR throughout the production and post chain. This is a must read for cinematographers and really anyone interested in the way film and television is increasingly being captured. Aaron Hunt speaks with Alex Garland about his Hulu series Devs, getting the creator to open up about his own on-set strategies as well as his personal opinion on the philosophical issue — determinism vs. free will — the show’s narrative revolves around. And Vikram Murthi writes about the spiffy location work of HBO’s Succession — both the practical work involved in finding and securing those places as well as the ways they reinforce story.
As for our regular columnists, Holly Willis surveys the history of filmmakers who have shot in self-imposed and constricted situations, giving you ample inspiration for your own quarantine shorts; Anthony Kaufman talks with producers and financiers about whether it’s even possible to finance a larger film during this pandemic; and Joanne McNeil finds a strange present-day solace in Robert Zemeckis’s Jodie Foster-starring Contact.
Our issue rounds out with, the first time in our pages, A.S.Hamrah, who writes about reviewing films via screener and the unexpected life collisions that can occur.
The purchase link is below, and you can pay via PayPal or your own credit card.
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