Authors — Scott Macaulay
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The Future of Storytelling: Tom Perlmutter on the Evolution of Cinema
The Future of Storytelling has announced the date of its second annual summit — October 3, in New York City. In the interview below, the National Film Board of Canada’s Tom Perlmutter expounds on his belief that new forms of storytelling will change the world. For more, read the press release below and visit the Future of Storytelling website. The Future of StoryTelling (FoST) will host its second annual summit in New York City on Thursday, October 3rd. FoST gathers a community of storytellers across all disciplines—including film, TV, publishing, music, gaming, journalism, adverting, and more—to explore how technology is […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 5, 2013 -
25 Picks for the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is overwhelming. Following the more rarefied Telluride and Venice Film Festivals, it’s a large, populist event that mixes red-carpet premieres with new filmmaker discovery and highlights from Cannes and other earlier events. As I usually do, I’ve concentrated on premieres and American independents for this preview, largely omitting films you’ve heard about because they’ve already been praised at other festivals (like, for example, Telluride hits 12 Years a Slave and Prisoners). Here, selected from the feature films, is what I’m hoping to catch at the festival this year. Beneath the Harvest Sky. The documentary team […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 5, 2013 -
Day 10 of 16: Chad Hartigan and This is Martin Bonner
In This is Martin Bonner, Chad Hartigan’s second fiction feature, Martin (the wonderful Australian-born, Seattle-based actor Paul Eenhoorn), is heading into life’s third act and attempting to make something of it. Post-divorce, he moves West to Reno, Nevada, where he takes a job as an outreach counselor, offering spiritual guidance to recently paroled ex-cons. Enter Travis (Richmond Arquette), who, rejoining civilian life after doing time for a hit and run, finds himself adrift, unable to fully assimilate and to connect with his now-grown daughter. In Martin he finds an awkward but needed companionship. This is Martin Bonner‘s narrative is a […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 2, 2013 -
Our Ten Most Popular Posts of August, 2013
Here, according to Google Analytics, are our ten most popular posts of August, 2013. 1. “5 Lessons on Making a ‘Bigger’ Movie.” Drinking Buddies producer Alicia Van Couvering’s advice for directors stepping up to larger budgets was our top post of the month. 2. “In the Same Way Painters Used Their Paint: D.P. Bradford Young on Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and Mother of George.” Anthony Kaufman’s in-depth interview with Young, in which he talks about drawing inspiration from Renaissance painters and how he lit Rooney Mara, was our runner up for most-trafficked post of the month. 3. “Ten Lessons on […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 31, 2013 -
Filmmaker John Greyson Remains Jailed Inside Cairo Prison
Acclaimed Canadian director John Greyson and Dr. Tarek Loubani remain in a Cairo, Egypt prison following yesterday’s no-show by a prosecutor scheduled to meet with lawyers for the two men. Greyson and Loubani were arrested on August 16 on their way to Gaza City, where Loubani runs a program training doctors at a local hospital. Greyson was reportedly planning a documentary project. Due to strife in the region, the two extended their stay in Cairo an extra day when they were arrested and held for a 15-day detention period, a stay which ended yesterday. Now, they are being held indefinitely […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 30, 2013 -
Five Questions for A Plague So Pleasant Director Benjamin Roberds
Putting a new cinematic spin on the zombie genre is Benjamin Roberds’ microbudget (under $3,000!) indie, A Plague So Pleasant. In the film’s near future, a zombie epidemic has created an undead population that is largely harmless, attacking only when threatened. It’s even a felony to shoot a zombie in the U.S. A Plague So Pleasant‘s drama turns on protagonist Clay Marshall’s desire to do just that — shoot a zombie, the boyfriend of her sister, in order to jolt her back to reality. Also significant about A Plague So Pleasant — the filmmakers are releasing it online and for […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 29, 2013 -
Destin Daniel Cretton, Brie Larson, John Gallagher, Jr. and the Cast Talk Short Term 12
Winner of the 2013 SXSW Narrative Grand Jury Prize, Destin Cretton’s Short Term 12 is the entirely successful feature expansion of the writer/director’s excellent 2009 short about counselors and youth at a residential facility for at-risk teens. Flipping the gender of his protagonist from the short to the feature, Short Term 12 stars Brie Larson (a recent Actor winner at the Locarno Film Festival) as a savvy counselor whose spirit hasn’t yet been crushed by the bureaucrats above her. Of course, she’s challenged, not just by troubled teenagers but also by life changes and self-worth issues, the latter stemming from […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 23, 2013 -
Joe Swanberg talks Olivia Wilde, CAA and Going Bigger on Drinking Buddies
The confident and funny Drinking Buddies is Joe Swanberg’s first picture with a real budget (above five figures) and real stars (Olivia Wilde, Jake Johnson, Anna Kendrick and Ron Livingstone), but don’t jump to the conclusion that it’s some kind of rom-com sell-out. The emotional messiness, generational indecision and loose-limbed storytelling of Swanberg’s previous work are all present here, honed and amplified by a terrific cast and sharp production team. The film has traditional elements: two couples, flirtations and one weekend in the country. But then there’s alcohol — specifically beer — and not just flowing during one climactic meltdown […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 23, 2013 -
Peter Mattei on How to Sell a Screenplay
Playwright, film director and now novelist Peter Mattei (The Deep Whatsis) was the guest recently on Brad Listi’s Other People podcast, where he told a surprising tale about contemporary Hollywood screenplay sales. Matthei, whose feature Love in the Time of Money was a La Ronde-inspired social X-ray of the early aughts, talks with Listi about working in the dotcom world and advertising, about the empowering nature of fiction writing and then this: I heard a story about a really well established screenwriter who had a great sci-fi script he couldn’t sell. So he finally just went into a comic book […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 19, 2013 -
Laura Poitras on Turning on the Camera
One extraordinary passage among many in Peter Maas’s New York Times Sunday Magazine cover article on Laura Poitras and her role in the Edward Snowden story details the symbolic meanings of the documentarian’s most basic act: turning on the camera. By this point in the story, Poitras has been contacted by Snowden, has had a series of encrypted exchanges with him, but doesn’t know who he is. She, along with journalists Glenn Greenwald and Ewan MacAskill of The Guardian, travel to Hong Kong to meet the source for what will be the most explosive national security tale of modern times. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 17, 2013
