Authors — Filmmaker Staff
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“There’s an Old Saying that Restrictions are Needed to be Truly Creative. That’s Always Sounded like Stockholm Syndrome”: Director Panos Cosmatos | Mandy
As you made your film during the increasingly chaotic backdrop of the last year, how did you as a filmmaker control, ignore, give in to or, conversely, perhaps creatively exploit the wild and unpredictable? What roles did chaos and order play in your films? Thematically speaking, fittingly chaos and control are themes of my first film, Beyond The Black Rainbow, and Mandy. Creatively speaking; there’s an old saying that restrictions are needed to be truly creative. That’s always sounded like a form of Stockholm syndrome to me. I believe that given complete freedom, time and resources many artists would take their respective mediums in undreamed of directions and to incredible new heights. Pragmatically speaking; the […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 25, 2018 -
“The Problems of Online Censorship and Social Media”: Editor Philipp Gromov on The Cleaners
German editor Philipp Gromov has cut 11 documentary features, series and shorts since 2010. He began his career on The Other Chelsea: A Story from Donetsk, which tells the story of a small mining town in Ukraine. His latest feature, The Cleaners, premieres in competition at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. The film offers a rare glimpse into the lives of digital “cleaners”: anonymous people contracted by Silicon Valley companies to scrub the internet of content deemed “inappropriate.” Gromov spoke with Filmmaker about cutting the film and why The Cleaners has inspired him to cut his own use of social media. Filmmaker: How […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 25, 2018 -
“Everything Was Challenging Where Money Was Involved”: DP Roberto Schaefer on What They Had
Versatile cinematographer Roberto Schaefer has worked on films of all sizes: from Quantum of Solace to The Paperboy, Geostorm to Waiting for Guffman. His newest project is a low-budget indie from first-time writer/director Elizabeth Chomko. The film assembles a formidable cast – Hilary Swank, Michael Shannon, Blythe Danner and Robert Forster – to tell a family drama set in the Chicago suburbs. The film premieres with five screenings at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Schaefer speaks below about the time and money crunch inherent in making a small, character-driven drama today. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 25, 2018 -
“I Was Careful to Always Have Darkness in the Frame”: DP David Devlin on Monster
Anthony Mandler makes his directorial debut at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival after having spent a career directing music videos for the likes of Jay-Z, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Drake and many other artists. The film, Monster, is an adaptation of the hard-hitting young adult novel of the same name from Walter Dean Myers. Mandler tapped his longtime collaborator David Devlin to shoot his first feature. In addition to his music video work with Mandler, Devlin has worked as a 2nd unit cinematographer with Janusz Kaminski on 12 Steven Spielberg films. The Montana-based DP spoke with Filmmaker about using vintage anamorphic […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 25, 2018 -
“Hamlet from Ophelia’s POV”: Editor Luke Dunkley on Sundance Drama Ophelia
Luke Dunkley began his career 20-some years ago as an editor on the short-lived BBC show This Life. He has since gone on to work for dozens of TV series and miniseries, including Netflix’s The Crown, Channel 4’s National Treasure and Canal Plus’s The Last Panther. Dunkley served as the editor on Ophelia, the fourth feature from Australian director Claire McCarthy. Ophelia is a retelling of Hamlet as told from the perspective of the young noblewoman of Denmark. Below, Dunkley discusses how he and McCarthy sought to “not compromise the young female perspective” in their spin on Shakespeare. Filmmaker: How and why did […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 25, 2018 -
“I Wanted to Bring Them into a Confession Booth”: DPs Avner Shahaf and Alex Margineau on The Oslo Diaries
Directors Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan hired two cinematographers to film The Oslo Diaries, their documentary on Israeli-Palestinian relations in the early 1990s. They did so for a specific reason: One cameraman (Avner Shahaf) would serve as lead DP on interviews, while the other (Alex Margineau) would shoot the film’s reenactments. The latter footage – shot in the vein of such films as No and Stories We Tell – was shot to blend seamlessly with actual archival footage from the era. Below, both cinematographers discuss their experiences on the project, which screens in competition at the Sundance Film Festival. Filmmaker: How […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 25, 2018 -
“He Was Loaded with Apparent Contradictions”: DP Andrij Parekh on The Catcher Was a Spy
In 2005, Filmmaker hailed Andrij Parekh as one of its 25 New Faces of Independent Film. Since then, the New York-based DP has gone on to shoot a number of major films and series: Blue Valentine, The Zookeeper’s Wife and HBO’s Show Me a Hero, to name a few. Parekh served as the DP on The Catcher Was a Spy, a period drama starring Paul Rudd as a professional baseball player (Moe Berg) who was tapped to become a spy during World War II. Ahead of the film’s premiere at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, Parekh spoke with Filmmaker about the film’s […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 24, 2018 -
“We Wanted the Film to Feel French”: DP Giles Nuttgens on Colette
Giles Nuttgens received a BAFTA nomination last year for his work on David Mackenzie’s Hell or High Water. The DP’s other recent credits include Sundance premieres God Help the Girl (2014), The D Train (2015), The Fundamentals of Caring (2016). He returns to the festival this year with Colette, a UK drama starring Keira Knightley and Dominic West. Below, he discusses working with director Wash Westmoreland, the inspiration of Max Ophuls and avoiding the “‘chocolate box’ type of imagery that one often sees on period films.” Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 24, 2018 -
“Blissful Madness!”: Lucas Celler on Editing Sandi Tan’s Documentary Shirkers
Twenty-some years ago, Sandi Tan and her friends shot a 16mm thriller called Shirkers. It was a guerilla-style production in her home country of Singapore. The film, however, was never finished because a member of the crew – the mysterious Georges – stole all the footage and disappeared. Tan’s new documentary, Shirkers, is an experimental dive into that footage and what it meant to her as a young filmmaker. Tan hired filmmaker Lucas Celler to edit and give shape to the film. Below, Celler discusses editing this “collage film, constructed with everything from video to film to photos to maps to […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 24, 2018 -
“How Do You Give Meaning and Structure to Decades of a Person’s Life?”: Director David Wain | A Futile and Stupid Gesture
As you made your film during the increasingly chaotic backdrop of the last year, how did you as a filmmaker control, ignore, give in to or, conversely, perhaps creatively exploit the wild and unpredictable? What roles did chaos and order play in your films? A Futile and Stupid Gesture was my first experience doing a biopic, which I learned is a daunting task. How do you give meaning and structure to decades of a person’s life, in the course of one movie? And Doug Kenney’s life was defined by chaos. So we knew that in shooting, it was important to […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 24, 2018
