Authors — Scott Macaulay
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Music Video: KVB’s “Hands,” Directed by Alix Lambert
Filmmaker — and occasional Filmmaker contributor — Alix Lambert (The Mark of Cain, Bayou Blue) recently directed three dreamy, color-drenched music videos for the band KVB. Using a similar approach to performance footage but layering different imagery for each track, the three songs — “Captives,” “Hands” and “Shadows” form a loose trilogy. From the InCase/Room 205 site: While on a recent tour of the Western United States, London-based The KVB moved heaven and earth to make this wonderfully meditative 3-part episode possible. Working with award-winning documentary filmmaker Alix Lambert (The Mark of Cain), cinematographer Conor Simpson, engineer Griffin Rodriguez and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 9, 2013 -
Filmmaker Laura Poitras Co-Authors Bombshell Domestic Spying Report
Like everyone, on Wednesday I read Glenn Greenwald’s Guardian report, “NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily.” I was outraged, but I can’t say I was shocked. I’ve known for some time —- since I was a teenager — that the NSA routinely scoops up all international communications. More to the point, I’d already written this info myself, on this site. In covering filmmaker Laura Poitras’s event at the Whitney Biennial last year, I described the presentation of her guest speaker, Bill Binney, the NSA whistleblower whose warnings have alarmed privacy advocates for years. I wrote: “Slides […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 7, 2013 -
City World Director Brent Chesanek
Among the discoveries at the 2012 edition of CPH:DOX was Brooklyn-based Brent Chesanek’s City World, which is part magic realist children’s adventure tale and part austere landscape documentary. Over precisely framed tableaux shot in his hometown of Orlando, FL — nearly all of them completely absent of people — Chesanek drapes the narration of a young boy mulling the breakup of his family and subsequent move, with his father, to this Southern city. As in another recent film, General Orders No. 9, contemporary landscape photography is presented as historical residue meant to be both meditated on and explicated. Drained of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 5, 2013 -
MoMA Launches “Harris Savides: Visual Poet” Series
Ten features shot by the late cinematographer Harris Savides are included in “Harris Savides: Visual Poet,” a series opening at MoMA today. Writes curator Anne Morra: A Savides shot is often characterized by a sensitivity to design and the striking mutability of light, and a special attention to the actor’s place in the composition. The films in this special tribute represent the wide range of his work, and the many directors who chose his camera to reflect their most personal stories. The series opens with Jonathan Glazer’s Birth, which was the film concentrated on by Zach Wigon in Filmmaker‘s remembrance […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 5, 2013 -
Letters from Blocked Filmmakers: Gregory Austin McConnell
In the debut piece in this column, Letters from Blocked Filmmakers, Drew Whitmire described a relentless perfectionism that led to him continually begin and begin again what was meant to be his debut feature — a 14-year process that resulted in only 15 minutes of footage. In today’s installment, Gregory Austin McConnell describes a related behavior: a continual re-envisioning of his feature as he ages and his own life circumstances change. Characters, storylines and tone all mutate as McConnell’s teenage dreams give way to adult realities — realities that bring not only creative change but also family responsibilities that make […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 4, 2013 -
Which Film Festivals Accept Online Shorts?
Is your short online and your heart is set on premiering it for audiences at the Cannes, Berlin, Edinburgh, Maryland or Chicago International film festivals? Well, kiss those dreams goodbye as those five festivals are among a number of fests that disallow shorts that the filmmakers have previously placed online. The good news, however, is that an increasingly number of important festivals, including Sundance and SXSW, accept online shorts. The folks at Short of the Week have compiled the Essential List of Festivals and Online Eligibility, a list that concludes that two thirds of today’s fests welcome such submissions. View […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 31, 2013 -
13 Takeaways from the 2013 Cannes Film Market
Earlier this week I posted “15 Lessons for Producers from the Cannes Film Festival and Market.” With the festival and market now firmly in the rear-view mirror, the consensus is that it was a solid one for the international sales community, without, perhaps that one giant locomotive title but with an appropriately modest number of films hitting their ask prices. Tastes were noted to have shifted, with buyers wanting “more Jennifer Lawrence and less Sylvester Stallone.” And on the pure indie level, I noticed, as I wrote in my piece on producers, a new crop of American independents have figured […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 31, 2013 -
Letters from Blocked Filmmakers: Zoje Stage
“Isn’t there some form of torture that involves death via a thousand small cuts?” The first sentence — indeed, the entirety of this latest edition of Letters from Blocked Filmmakers — is a heartbreaker. This week’s column makes me alternately want to shake its writer, Zoje Stage, and say, “C’mon, don’t give up,” and applaud the reasoned “I’m moving on” vibe that may lead her to a happier creative place. Intended as her directorial debut, Zoje Stage’s The Machine Who Loved is a screenplay written to be realized on a low-budget, and over the course of six years it has […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 28, 2013 -
15 Tips for Producers from the Cannes Film Festival
Learning from your producer colleagues — that’s one of the benefits of attending the Cannes Film Festival and Market. Whether you are premiering a film, hustling a film, or just watching movies, the experience of encountering at multiple parties fellow filmmakers makes Cannes a great place to glean tips on your practice by observing how others are getting it done. In addition to watching movies, this year at Cannes I moderated morning meetings at the Producers Network, of which IFP is a sponsoring partner. I also moderated the “American Producers in Cannes” panel at the American Pavilion and spoke with […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 28, 2013 -
Brit Marling’s Georgetown Convocation Speech: On Not Going it Alone
“When a group of people get together and decide to do something, strange and mysterious things can happen,” said writer and actress Brit Marling as she delivered the 2013 Georgetown University Senior Convocation speech. The Georgetown alum reflected on her years at Georgetown and the friends and future directors she met there — Mike Cahill and Zal Batmanglij. She describes moving to L.A. with them and not becoming successful until the three decided to stop trying to “break in” and just make work. “If I can tell you anything of value, it’s that the most important thing you do from […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 27, 2013
