Authors — Scott Macaulay
-
BLOOD AND TAKE-OUT: “MISSION CHINESE”
Adele Romanski, producer (The Myth of the American Sleepover) and director (Leave Me Like You Found Me), passed along this link to her latest short production: Mission Chinese, a stylish and bloody revenge fantasy directed by Cole Schreiber and David Parker. The short is a branded-content piece for the New York/San Francisco men’s store, Freeman’s Sporting Club, and is a collaboration between Freeman’s, Mission Chinese (the New York/San Francisco-based restaurant) and Sunday Paper, Schreiber and Parker’s start-up production company, whose work you’ve seen on this site before. It was shot by James Laxton (The Myth of the American Sleepover, Medicine […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 18, 2012 -
Todd Solondz on Independent Film, Then and Now
Here’s another clip from my conversation with Dark Horse writer/director Todd Solondz. I asked Solondz to reflect on independent film, then and now, and his own longevity as a purely independent director. In his answer, he discusses, the declining budgets of independent film, television and the seminal nature of The Blair Witch Project. Dark Horse is currently playing at the Angelika Theater in New York.
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 9, 2012 -
EVERYNONE WINS GRAND PRIZE AT VIMEO AWARDS
Last night at the NYU Skirball Center, the Vimeo Awards took place and one of the 25 New Faces from 2011, Everynone, were the big winners. For their excellent Symmetry, the video collective of Will Hoffman, Daniel Mercadante and Julius Metoyer III took away both the prize in the Lyrical category and the Grand Prize, which came with an additional $25,000 in prize money. In my profile of Everynone for 25 New Faces last year, I wrote: If you listen to the radio, then you may have seen the short documentary essay films of the New York collaborative, Everynone. For the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 8, 2012 -
Todd Solondz on Career Longevity and Dark Horse
Todd Solondz just scored one of the best reviews of his career with A.O. Scott’s New York Times rave for Dark Horse, opening today. Favorably comparing it to Death of a Salesman (!), Scott writes: But Mr. Solondz brilliantly — triumphantly — turns this impression on its head, transforming what might have been an exercise in easy satirical cruelty into a tremendously moving argument for the necessity of compassion. Again and again — in the ’90s indie touchstones Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness, and more recently in Life During Wartime — this director has blurred the boundary between misanthropy […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 8, 2012 -
FILMAID MUSIC VIDEO: “A HEAVY ABACUS,” DIRECTED BY PAOLA MENDOZA AND TOPAZ ADIZES
Filmmaker Paola Mendoza (Entre Nos, and one of our 25 New Faces) just forwarded this video she directed with filmmaker Topaz Adizes for FilmAid. It’s the organization’s first video, in support of World Refugee Day on June 20, and the music is The Joy Formidable’s “A Heavy Abacus.” While volunteering as Visiting Teaching Artists for FilmAid, Mendoza and Adizes shot this piece featuring Sudanese refugees in the Kakuma refugee camp in Northern Kenya. It was shot with a Canon 7D using two bounce boards and an iPhone as a monitor for the kids to lip sync to. For more information […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 6, 2012 -
ALRICK BROWN: BREAKING IN IS HARD TO DO
Last night I moderated an IFP panel at DCTV, co-sponsored by the New York Television Festival, on transitioning from film to TV. It consisted of two TV execs — Colleen Conway (VP of Reality and Alternative Programming, Lifetime Networks) and Erin Keating (Director of Development & Production, IFC TV) — and one filmmaker, Alrick Brown. Filmmaker readers will be familiar with Brown as he was one of our 2011 25 New Faces and won an Audience Award at Sundance for his debut feature, Kinyarwanda. Brown recently broke into television by directing an episode of the upcoming ABC documentary crime series, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 6, 2012 -
AARON HILLIS RAISES INDIEGOGO FUNDS FOR HIS NEW VIDEO STORE
Last week I posted my interview with Aaron Hillis in which the Brooklyn-based curator and critic announced his purchase of Video Free Brooklyn, a Cobble Hill video rental store. In the interview he spoke of the fundraising campaign he needs to do to make the store viable again… and here it is. Check out the well-choreographed video and also the rewards he’s offering to his Indiegogo supporters. There are some hefty offerings here, including the entire Oscilloscope catalog and dinner with director Robert Downey, Sr., a private screening with actor David Cross, and Bobcat Goldthwait performing stand-up in your living […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 5, 2012 -
MUSIC VIDEO: “MAN ON FIRE,” DIRECTED BY BRADY CORBET
Actor/director Brady Corbet directed this great video for “Man on Fire,” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. It was shot by Jody Lee Lipes, d.p. of Tiny Furniture and whose own dance film is N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz. Check it out below.
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 5, 2012 -
JAMIE STUART’S A-LIST NEW YORK
Jamie Stuart, well known to Filmmaker readers for all the videos he’s shot for the site over the years, was commissioned to shoot the intros and promos for the New York City Made in New York Awards, held at Gracie Mansion last night. Here’s his intro spot featuring all the recipients, including Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep.
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 5, 2012 -
Prometheus Screenwriter Jon Spaihts
Telling the origin story of the creature that terrified us in Alien over three decades ago, Ridley Scott’s Prometheus is one of this summer’s most hotly anticipated films. But somewhat surprisingly, the origins of the screenplay came as much from a screenwriter’s general meeting as the story material developed for that original movie. At a meeting in the offices of Scott’s production company, Scott Free, screenwriter Jon Spaihts was asked to riff on the possibilities of a film that would revisit the Alien universe. What resulted is Prometheus, with a script credited to Spaihts and Damon Lindelof. Below I ask […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 4, 2012
