Authors — Scott Macaulay
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Phillip Van’s Amazing Post-Sandy Blackout Photos
Filmmaker and former 25 New Face Phillip Van took his camera out during the New York blackout and came away with a beautiful series of long-exposure shots capturing the city’s architecture and workers without their customary nocturnal illumination. Here’s what he had to say via email: I shot the photos on a regular old Canon 5D. One night I had a tripod. Another I went handheld so I could travel more. The city was pitch black and ominous. Buildings felt like mausoleums. But if you stayed out long enough, your eyes adjusted to candles and shadows behind curtains and you […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 7, 2012 -
DOC NYC Previewed by Artistic Director Thom Powers
With their Stranger than Fiction series at New York City’s IFC Center, Thom Powers and Raphaela Neihausen have been curating, programming and advocating for documentary film going on eight years now. Their Tuesday-night events are typically packed, drawing audiences with not only great films but human interaction — Q&A’s with directors, collaborators, and even the film’s subjects. Three years ago, when Powers and Neihausen wondered why there wasn’t a major, all-doc festival in New York, they realized that the challenge of launching one was a natural fit for them. The resulting DOC NYC is now in its third year (November […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 7, 2012 -
Volunteering, Donating and Voting Post-Sandy
I live in downtown Manhattan, so in the wake of Hurricane Sandy I was without power and, for the most part, cell service. Now that power is back, I’m more online, watching TV, and more realizing of the extensive damage caused by the hurricane and of all the people still needing power, shelter and the reconstruction of their neighborhoods. If you’re able to volunteer or donate, here are some links guiding you to people and organizations assisting in what is and will be a major effort. At its NYC Service site, the City of New York has a comprehensive list […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 4, 2012 -
11 Reasons Not To Vote from Errol Morris
Here’s a short film by Errol Morris made for the New York Times in which he speaks to young voters about their voting plans, or lack thereof.
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 3, 2012 -
The Imposter, Searching for Sugar Man Top Cinema Eye Honors Noms
At an event hosted by the AFI Film Festival today, Cinema Eye Honors announced its Honors for Nonfiction Filmmaking. Bart Layton’s The Imposter (pictured) and Malik Bendjelloul’s Searching for Sugar Man led the pack, with five nominations each. Both films were nominated the group’s Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Filmmaking Award, joining fellow nominees Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi’s 5 Broken Cameras; Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s Detropia; Matthew Akers’ Marina Abramovic The Artist is Present, and Jason Tippet and Elizabeth Mims’ Only the Young. Tippet and Mims, who Filmmaker selected for our 25 New Faces of 2012, had the most […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 3, 2012 -
Adult Friend Finder: Writer/Director Sean Baker on Starlet
Dree Hemingway is a sweet porn star and Besedka Johnson — Best Actress winner at the 2012 SXSW Film Festival — is the mysteriously bitter older woman she befriends in Sean Baker’s sun-streaked relationship drama, Starlet. Interview by Scott Macaulay.
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 1, 2012 -
ro*co Goes iTunes
“I think we, as an independent filmmaking community, focus way too much on the U.S.,” says Annie Roney, the Sausalito-based founder of documentary foreign sales agent and distributor ro*co films. “There’s a whole big world out there of potential viewers for documentaries. And I think the hunger for them is growing worldwide in the same way that it is here.” Helping to quench that hunger is a new partnership between ro*co and the London-based Bertha Foundation that will enable films from the ro*co catalog to be available digitally in international markets via iTunes. “We share a common goal with The […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 1, 2012 -
Editing Life of Pi
At the start of my interview with Tim Squyres, the editor of most of Ang Lee’s films, including his latest, Life of Pi, I tell him how much I like the movie. I say that I know I like it because its images, its ingeniously affecting conclusion, and, most of all, the headspace it created for me have lingered for days. Upon waking each morning, scenes have come flooding back. And the subtleties of the film’s ending, which contains a rich meditation on the role stories play in our lives, have resonated in my mind in unexpected ways. “I get […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 1, 2012 -
5 Kickstarter Tips from the National Film Society
The guys at the National Film Society recently succeeded in the Kickstarter campaign for their Awesome Asian Bad Guys web series. (Featured, by the way, on Filmmaker’s curated Kickstarter page….) They’ve posted a thank-you video offering their top five Kickstarter campaign tips. Speaking of Kickstarter, Zak Forsman’s piece on how to do a campaign is one of the best things we’ve ever published on the site. Bookmark it for when you do your own campaign. P.S. While linking to the National Film Society above I came across their latest video, a “Who Is Jean-Luc Godard?” spot. If only for the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 26, 2012 -
Derren Brown’s Zombie Apocalypse
In addition to his masterful stage shows, the British mentalist Derren Brown has made a name for himself with elaborate television real-life dramas which are part Truman Show and part CIA mind-control experiment. His latest, for U.K.’s Channel Four, is called Apocalypse, and in it Brown convinces an ordinary person that he’s trapped in a real-life version of The Walking Dead. But, says Brown,the show has a larger point: Stoic Hellenistic philosophers advised us to rehearse regularly the loss of everything we love. Only that way, they believed, could we learn to value what we have in life, rather than […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 26, 2012
