Authors — Scott Macaulay
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10 Lessons for Filmmakers from the IFP Narrative Labs
Still the only lab focusing entirely on what happens after rough cut —- from locking picture to devising a distribution strategy — the IFP Narrative Lab concluded its ninth edition last month. When I created the Lab with the IFP almost a decade ago, the idea was simple. A successful career in film is partly based around making mistakes — and then not making those same mistakes again. But first-time filmmakers don’t have prior experience to draw upon, and in today’s hyper-competitive, content-swamped environment, failure is a luxury many of them can’t afford —— especially when that failure is made […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 8, 2013 -
“You’re Always Supposed to Turn Your Phone Off on Set”: Ed Lachman Talks Cinematography
The folks at Craft Truck sat down with legendary cinematographer Ed Lachman, whose credits include Far from Heaven, Virgin Suicides, Life during Wartime, and Ulrich Seidl’s recent Paradise trilogy. Watch part one above and part two at the link.
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 6, 2013 -
Music Video: David Lynch/Nine Inch Nails Epilepsy Warning
David Lynch may be mostly retired from filmmaking these days, but here he is in Paul Sharits/Tony Conrad mode with a music video that comes with an epilepsy warning. If you are non-epileptic, turn the speakers up, the lights down and enjoy David Lynch’s video for Nine Inch Nails’ “Come Back Haunted.”
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 28, 2013 -
Jem Cohen on Museum Hours
Jem Cohen’s highly recommended Museum Hours — the winner of the Filmmaker-sponsored 2013 Cinema Eye Heterodox Award — opens in theaters today from Cinema Guild. Below is an excerpt (about half) of my interview with Cohen in the current print issue of Filmmaker. You can read the whole interview in the issue, and in the iPad version there’s also a 12-minute video with Cohen explicating various scenes in the film. What does it mean, in 2013, to photograph — to reproduce — a painting? Does it, as Walter Benjamin wrote in his 1936 essay “The Work of Art in the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 28, 2013 -
Dean Fleischer Camp and Jenny Slate Launch New Web Series, Catherine
Dean Fleischer Camp and Jenny Slate — the 2011 25 New Faces who created the delightful Marcel the Shell with Shoes On — have a new web series, a 12-part “comedy of sincerity” called Catherine. Camp wrote in an email: It’s a comedy, but it’s also sincere and menacing and hopefully kind of evocative. In some ways it’s a response to the “awkward” comedy that dominates TV & movies right now. My secret hope is that it kicks off a new movement away from that kind of boring cynicism toward something with a live, beating heart. A single-entendre sense of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 25, 2013 -
Filmmaker Print Subscriptions Now Include iPad, Digital Access
A yearly subscription to the print edition of Filmmaker magazine now includes our iPad edition as well as full access to our digital archives — all for $18. That’s the short version of the recent changes we’ve made for subscribers. The slightly longer version, for those interested in how we’re conceiving of Filmmaker across our various platforms, follows. If you’re a regular reader of this site, you’ll have recognized that we’ve effectively created multiple editions of Filmmaker. Our website contains new, original content every day, and this content is mostly not contained in the print magazine. In fact, if you […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 21, 2013 -
On Indiegogo: Mitch McCabe’s Make Me Normal
The body and mind — filmmaker Mitch McCabe tackled the former in her excellent HBO documentary, Youth Knows No Pain, which looked at the plastic surgery industry and America’s fixation on staying young. Now, she says, she’s “pointing the camera in the opposite direction, at our internal selves.” Make Me Normal is her film about the mental health industry. From her website: MAKE ME NORMAL is a feature-length documentary film exploring recent controversies in the psychiatry field, the rise of diagnosed mental illness, psychopharmacology and our new definition of “normal”— all set against the backdrop of the filmmaker’s own roll-coaster […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 21, 2013 -
5 Recommendations for the Northside Film Festival
Kicking off this week in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the Northside Film Festival once again has invited a number of community partners, including Filmmaker, to curate programs of new independent, foreign and retrospective titles. Filmmaker‘s pick is Nicolas Provost’s bracing The Invader, a kind of African immigrant on Taxi Driver, which is receiving its New York premiere. Provost is a Belgian visual artist and filmmaker who recently moved to Bushwick, and he’ll be attending the Q&A. Below are five picks — including The Invader — you can plan your calendar around this week. Go Down Death. Amidst all the cookie-cutter indies, Aaron […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 18, 2013 -
Serbian Shocker Clip Arrives on DVD from Artsploitation Films
Winner of the Best Feature Tiger Award at the 2012 Rotterdam Film Festival, Maja Milos’s Clip has stirred controversy on the festival circuit for its graphic and downbeat look at the sexual rebellion of a barely-teenage Serbian girl. The first feature of its young female director, and partially financed by the Serbian government, the film takes its title from its 14-year-old protagonist’s penchant for recording her drug-and-sex-fueled environments on her cell phone. Brandon Harris covered the 2012 International Film Festival Rotterdam for the Spring, 2012 edition of Filmmaker and below is his take on the movie. Clip is released on […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 11, 2013 -
Apple Announces New Mac Pro with Upgraded Editing Capabilities
Alongside a Jony Ive-helmed refresh of its iOS mobile software, a long-awaited update of Apple’s Mac Pro line was finally announced at today’s WWDC. Replacing the large cheesegrater floor model is a computer one-eighth the size that resembles the classic Braun KF 20 coffeemaker. From the Verge: The new Mac Pro will be one-eighth the size of the old 40-pound Mac Pro. The new desktop, which stands 9.9-inches tall and 6.6-inches wide, will ship this fall. When it does, it’ll feature a blacked-out aluminum exterior and be small enough that it can sit on most desks. Inside, it will make […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 10, 2013
