If you’re going to get stuck shooting a film in a global pandemic, it helps if you’re already pretty much self-quarantined in a beach resort and living off product-placement steak, wine and coffee. That’s the situation I found myself in on my film, 18½, which we started shooting in early March, 2020. What could possibly go wrong? Foot Bumps and Elbow Knocks 18½ is a 70s-era Watergate conspiracy thriller/dark comedy we were filming in Greenport, New York, which is on the tip of the North Fork of Long Island (“Nawth Fawk,” as it’s known locally), about three hours from Manhattan, […]

In 1996, flying home from Slamdance, I was stuck on the tarmac at the Salt Lake City airport in a blizzard. After an hour and a half, a Sundance actor and I tried to talk the flight attendants into playing a VHS tape of my film Omaha (The Movie) in the cabin. They were happy to but said we had to clear it with the pilot and led us into the cockpit. The pilot thought it was a cool idea, too, but ultimately wondered whether the corporate office might object and decided he probably shouldn’t play the film.  To this […]

With the government shutdown lingering indefinitely, there are some concerns that furloughed safety inspectors, moonlighting TSA agents and “sick” air traffic controllers are impacting the safety of air travel. If you’d been planning on flying to Park City in late January for Sundance, Slamdance or the Art House Convergence, and you’re concerned, you might want to think about driving there instead. If you live anywhere west of the Mississippi, driving is definitely a solid option. One advantage to driving is that when you get to Park City, you’ll have a car. Perfect for going to screenings, parties, Staples, Walmart, etc! […]

One of the great joys of directing a film is to work with actors, and when you make an ensemble film, you get to work with a lot of actors! But working with any big group of people — especially actors! — can come with a host of unique challenges. So, whether you’re making a blockbuster like the Russo Brother’s recent uber-ensemble Avengers: Infinity Wars or you’re making a web series in your back yard with all your high school drama class friends, many of the lessons are the same. My current film, Bernard and Huey may sound like a […]

As filmmakers, we sometimes get so concerned with what film festivals can do for us and for our films that we forget about what our films can do for the festivals, and more importantly, for their local audiences. This year more than ever, I’ve seen festivals in communities around the world overcome violence, natural disasters and other communal sources of anxiety to put on amazing celebrations of cinema. They’re helping to spark conversations, rebuild damaged economies and in general just get people celebrating again with their neighbors, friends and visiting filmmakers. I’ve had a first-hand look at some of these […]

In an excerpt from his recently released and highly recommended book, The Cheerful Subversive’s Guide to Independent Filmmaking, filmmaker Dan Mirvish explains how to work with — or deputize — a film set photographer. The Cheerful Subversives Guide to Independent Filmmaking is now available from Amazon and other retailers. Back in the pre-digital days, still photographers used SLR cameras buried in giant, black, soundproof boxes, so that the shutter-mirror click didn’t interfere with sound takes. Usually they were shooting black-and-white stills and sometimes color slide film. The main reason you needed a separate still photographer was that many distributors and […]

If you’re like most young-ish filmmakers, you grew up and matured in an open source world of Napster, YouTube and BitTorrent. Whether it was making mixtapes for your college girlfriend, or ripping CDs and DVDs with your film school pals, “appropriating media” might have been a way of life for you to consume and share your favorite songs, films and TV. You scoffed at FBI warnings on VHS tapes and mocked MPAA PSAs. You’ve mashed up, mixed up and just plain stolen your way through the early 21st century with nary a tinge of regret. Hell, we’re living in an […]

As one of the pillars of the Golden Age of the ’70s, Mike Nichols’ film Carnal Knowledge was a big influence on my own last movie, Between Us. So during post-production on Between Us, I happened upon a biography of Carnal Knowledge screenwriter Jules Feiffer that mentioned that he had several unproduced screenplays. Hmm, I thought: Feiffer had won a Pulitzer Prize for his cartoon strip in the Village Voice, he’d won a couple of Obies for his plays, and as a screenwriter, he’d written Popeye for Robert Altman, Little Murders, that Alan Arkin had directed, and won a Best […]

Okay, you’ve spent seven years making your indie opus, another two years playing the festival circuit, and somewhere along the way you even managed to sell your film and get distribution. Hooray, you’re done and the party’s over! Your goal by this point is undoubtedly to move on and start working on the next film. But, wait a second, just because you’ve “sold” your film and you “got” distribution doesn’t mean your job as a filmmaker is “done” (or that you need to stop using “air quotes”). On the contrary, you’re still staring at a 20-to-life sentence for your film. […]

Some filmmakers spend their summer vacations on a Greek island, lounging with their Peloponnesian lover while watching old VHS bootlegs of Cassevetes films. I, on the other hand, spent my summer vacation going to an average of one meeting a day in order to become a TV director. Mind you, I’m not giving up on indie film, but we all know the drill by now: TV is the new indie film. It pays well, it’s more creative, it’s more instantly gratifying and all the cool kids are doing TV now. Hell, the Amazon pilot list alone has more Sundance alumni […]