Authors — Scott Macaulay
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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 -
Editor’s Letter
I was talking to someone about moderating panels and events, and I said the only secret is this: you have to assume the role of the audience member. You have to assume that if you’re bored by what the panelists are saying, your audience is probably bored as well and you should ask another question. But if you’re interested, they probably are too. I was really interested in what director Doug Liman had to say at Emerging Visions, a new RBC-sponsored partnership between IFP and the Film Society of Lincoln Center that was held just before we went to press […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 23, 2012 -
What if You Could Crowdfund a Filmmaker, Not a Film?
Here’s something I’ve always wondered: why are film investments always focused on the film, not the filmmaker? In other words, why don’t investors taking a chance on a first-time filmmaker get more than just the usually non-existent returns from that debut feature? Often what hits after the debut of a first feature is not the film but the filmmaker. The movie gets bought for a modest amount and usually underperforms, often leaving the investors with some degree of loss. But, after that film, the filmmaker is, well, a filmmaker, and in a position to move on to bigger and more […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 23, 2012 -
“I Need to Feel When I Make a Film That I’m Not the Same Person Who Made the One Before”: Director Leos Carax on Holy Motors
“The social web can’t exist until you are your real self online,” said Sheryl Sandberg on Charlie Rose last year. “I have to be ‘me’, and you have to be ‘Charlie Rose,’” the Facebook COO told the talk show host. “It’s me” — that single line appearing late in Leos Carax’s Holy Motors unexpectedly devastated me at the film’s Cannes premiere, and perhaps its memory is what’s causing me to recall Sandberg’s statement, which is certainly in line with similar comments by her boss, Mark Zuckerberg. In an age in which online platforms offer the possibility for anyone to craft for themselves a variety […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 22, 2012 -
Can Hackathons Save Independent Film?
Technology, collaboration and the rewards of spontaneous thinking — hackathons harness all three in events that are equal parts meet-up and late-night college term-paper deadline marathon. These multi-day crash sessions are popular in the tech world, gathering strategists, designers and developers to produce everything from fleshed-out concepts to fully designed apps. But does the hackathon format have anything to offer film? Can the problems of independent film — challenges of audience-building, discovery, and monetization — find their solutions in such accelerated brainstorming? Bond Influence and Strategy sought to find out this past weekend with Hacking Film, New York’s first film-centric […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 17, 2012 -
IFP to Run New “Made in NY” DUMBO-Based Media Center
UPDATE: The IFP has created this page to answer questions about the new Media Center. The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) will develop and operate a new Brooklyn-based “Made in New York” Media Center, spanning both traditional and new media practices, set to open this coming Spring. The announcement was made an outdoor press conference at 20 Jay Street in DUMBO, the site of the center. Said Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, “New York City stands at the forefront of the media and entertainment industries. The ‘Made in NY’ Media Center will allow us to continue to evolve and meet new […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 11, 2012 -
Trailer Watch: Django Unchained
Here’s the just-released second trailer for Quentin Taratino’s upcoming Django Unchained.
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 10, 2012
