Authors — Scott Macaulay
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Laura Poitras’s Spy Theater
There was a spooky feeling at the Whitney Biennial one Friday night this past April. Visitors to Laura Poitras’s “Surveillance Teach-In” were forcibly detained as they tried to enter the museum, while downstairs a masked man handed out leaflets with lists of addresses (NSA listening posts?), sinister in their nondescription. Slides flashed, of the anonymous desert buildings that house the servers that index our every email, phone call, transaction. And on the dais, an odd couple riffing one acronym after another: “NSA, NARIS, AES….” Hacker Jacob Appelbaum, black clad, with earrings, played something of a straight man, even as the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 27, 2012 -
MUSIC VIDEO: “A FAKE HELLO”
Factory 25 maestro Matt Grady appears here in his other guise as music video director with this witty clip for the band Young Fresh Fellows. The video features director Onur Tukel and actress Jennifer Prediger and shows you how much mileage you can get from a simple prop — in this case, a smiley-face flat-screen TV.
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 21, 2012 -
Independent Film Success: Luck or Merit?
Two of my favorite economics bloggers — Felix Salmon at Reuters and Joshua Brown at The Reformed Broker — are debating a new work by a third writer, Black Swan‘s Nassim Taleb, that has something to say to independent filmmakers. To bring their dialogue into our world: has the DIY revolution led to a system in which luck is the primary determinant of independent film success? Let’s start at the beginning. The work referenced — “Why It is No Longer a Good Idea to Be in The Investment Industry” — opens with a new term, “the spurious tail,” that refers […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 19, 2012 -
SATURDAY VIEWING: ANDY WARHOL AND EDIE SEDGWICK ON “MERV GRIFFIN”
(Hat tip: Dangerous Minds.)
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 18, 2012 -
Flash Crash: Writer/Director David Cronenberg on His Don DeLillo Adaptation, Cosmopolis
In his 1977 novel Players, Don DeLillo told the story of a crumbling marriage amidst terrorism on the New York Stock exchange. In the 1973 Great Jones Street, he portrayed a wealthy rock star escaping the solar of his own fame by walking off his tour and hiding out in a downtown Manhattan apartment. And in Mao II (1991), he sent a reclusive, blocked novelist away from the world of cultural production into the zeitgeist of Middle East political violence. The emotional affect of a hypermediated society, the ways in which personal relations are shaped by the white noise of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 17, 2012 -
“Blue Velvet Project” Creator Nicholas Rombes
One year ago, Nicholas Rombes proposed “The Blue Velvet Project” to me at Filmmaker. For 12 months, three times a week, he would scrutinize a single frame from David Lynch’s modern classic, looking both inside and outside of its aspect ratio for correspondences, allusions and meanings. For Rombes, it would be another in his “time-based” critical film essays — appropriately so, for it was because of another of these columns, 10/40/70 at The Rumpus, that I discovered his writing in the first place. (In fact, I interviewed him previously about this other fascinating project.) Nick had contributed to Filmmaker before […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 17, 2012 -
DONAL FOREMAN IS “OUT OF HERE”
If you’ve read the current print issue of Filmmaker, on stands now, you undoubtedly came across “The Shooting Parties,” Donal Foreman’s fascinating compare-and-contrast visit to three low-budget film sets. Stepping onto a truly microbudget set (i.e., virtually no budget and a one-day shoot), a film budgeted in the low six figures, and then one in the mid-six figures, Foreman discusses how money shapes one’s filmmaking philosophy. Money and filmmaking philosophy are two things on Foreman’s mind now as our correspondent, who also happens to be a writer/director, is gearing up for his first feature back in his home of Ireland. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 14, 2012 -
THE BIG SHOT MOVIE CLUB
Via the internets comes news of The Big Shot Movie Club, “a club for movie fans of all kinds.” The Big Shot Movie Club is Sarah Winshall and Julia Bembenek, and they write on their website: We will watch and discuss three movies we love every month relevant to a specific theme. The movies we watch will always be available online or at a your local video store. Hopefully, each month our loyal club members will learn about some lost gems and be reminded of their favorite classics as they watch and read and comment along with us. Coming up […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 14, 2012 -
DEADLINE FOR 2013 KAREN SCHMEER EDITING FELLOWSHIP ANNOUNCED
The Open Call for the 2013 Karen Schmeer Editing Fellowship has been announced. The fellowship, which comes with a cash prize as well as various mentorship activities, is currently accepting applications and has a deadline of September 28, 2012. From the website: The Karen Schmeer Film Editing Fellowship assists emerging documentary editors by supporting and developing their talent, expanding their creative community, and furthering their career aspirations. In conjunction with American Cinema Editors (ACE) and other partners, the Fellowship, in its third year, offers a wide array of opportunities. The Fellowship is targeted at documentary editors; fiction experience is welcome, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 14, 2012 -
PAUL RYAN, CATFISH NOODLER
If you’ve spent the day parsing Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan’s resume — perhaps glossing over his young fixation on psychopathic killer fan Ayn Rand — you may have stumbled when you encountered the name of one of his hobbies: catfish noodling. If you’re not up on the sport of wrestling these fish with your bare hands, check out Okie Noodling, a doc by Filmmaker 25 New Face Bradley Beesley. It streams free via Snag Films below.
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 13, 2012
