Filmmaker Braden King has made a hauntingly beautiful, web-only “interactive music video” for “Stitches,” the new single from Califone. In real time, the video pulls and sequences images from a curated selection of Tumblrs, sidescrolling them across your monitor in sync to the song’s elegant melancholy. Black-and-white photos and animated GIFs drift by, and by highlighting one with your cursor color bleeds back in. Click and the image flips over, allowing you to write a caption that is then sent to the band (and included on the “Stitches” home page) or, if you want, reblogged. Califone’s Tim Rutili and King are […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 31, 2013Are you a good writer, knowledgeable about new developments in film and new media, and a reader of Filmmaker? Filmmaker is currently seeking an NYC-based Contributing Web Editor. This is a part-time position involving daily writing and posting to this site. In addition to possessing strong writing, reporting and editing skills, our ideal candidate will have experience with filmmaking itself, whether that’s in features, shorts or web/new media work. Our Contributing Web Editor will report on developments of interest to our filmmaking audience, including reports on new equipment and technologies, software and events as well as stories focusing on the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 29, 2013IFP, publisher of Filmmaker Magazine, announced today 163 projects in development selected for its Independent Film Week Project Forum. Projects include documentaries by such directors as Academy Award Winners Louis Psihoyos and Cynthia Wade; fiction features by documentarians Jennifer Fox and Jeremiah Zagar; fiction features by web creators Mesh Flinders and Thom Woodley; and an original web series, Awesome Asian Bad Guys, by Patrick Epino and Stephen Dypiangco. In addition, a number of projects from Filmmaker Magazine 25 New Faces have been selected, including new work from Carlen Altman, Sophia Takal, the Zellner Brothers, Alex Jablonski, Pete Ohs & Andrea […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 25, 2013Tze Chun, a 2007 25 New Face based on his great short, Windowbreaker, appears to have done a 180 follow-up to his first feature, the low-key, character-based drama Children of Invention. Cold Comes the Night stars Breaking Bad‘s Bryan Cranston, rising star Alice Eve and a missing bag of cash. But, note that I wrote “appears” in the above sentence. Last year, Kishori Rajan spoke to Chun about this movie while it was in production, and the director says it’s not entirely unlike his previous work: When his manager sent him as a writing sample a psychological thriller script by […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 24, 2013With dozens, sometimes hundreds, of press releases landing in my in-box every day, what makes me click on a link to learn more? Usually, it’s not overuse of superlatives. Nonetheless, there was something about this letter from Manhattan Project Films that made me want to watch the trailer: Manhattan Project Films is set to release its latest movie “21st Century”. We invite you to be part of our celebration and witness first hand the beauty and joy of our new cinematic masterpiece. The event promises you the opportunity to enjoy the charming atmosphere of the movie industry, food and drinks, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 24, 2013Long single takes are some of the most thrilling shots in cinema, and many would argue their thrills are reliant, in part, on the audience’s knowledge that they are choreographed and filmed in real time. But CGI-enabled single takes can be thrilling too, as this amazing trailer for Alfonso Cuarón’s upcoming Gravity proves. The film opens October 4.
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 24, 2013For his first music video in 11 years, Paul Thomas Anderson reunites with his ex, Fiona Apple, for “Hot Knife,” from the singer/songwriter’s The Idler Wheel…. Mixing black-and-white and color, split screen and tight close-ups, the video was, Apple said in an earlier interview, developed with Anderson prior to his shooting of The Master. It’s just been released today; check it out above.
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 24, 2013One of the most vexing and unanticipated problems facing independent filmmakers involves realizing that brief, seemingly incidental references — a song lyric, the quoting of a movie character, or referencing a line from a novel — are actually copyrighted materials requiring clearance. Yes, there is what’s known as Fair Use — a doctrine allowing selective quotation of copyrighted works. But Fair Use is most often used in documentary and less so in fiction works. But a recent court ruling involving a William Faulkner line quoted in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris offers hope to filmmakers. This problem of quote clearance […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 24, 2013Sacramento-born Brie Larson has been acting since the age of 6 and already has a lengthy list of credits including television (United States of Tara), studio films (21 Jump Street, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) and independent dramas (Rampart, Greenberg). This summer she appears in three of the best-reviewed independent films of the 2013 festival circuit — James Ponsoldt’s The Spectacular Now, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Don Jon, and in the lead role that will break her to critics and a wider audience, Destin Daniel Cretton’s Short Term 12. Larson plays a tough yet compassionate supervisor at a facility for at-risk teens, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 18, 2013We used to classify the filmmakers in each summer issue’s “25 New Faces” by listing their job category under their names, such as “director” or “cinematographer” or “actor.” But we don’t do that anymore, mostly because it’s too difficult. Take this year’s “25” — virtually everyone on the list is some kind of multi-hyphenate. There are two directors of photography on the list, and both are directing their own films — and one has even become a kind of distributor! And those two are by no means the only shooters here. Quite a few of the directors we picked this […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 18, 2013