Authors — Scott Macaulay

CISPA, EXPLAINED IN PICTURES

I’ll confess to, after getting all worked up about SOPA and PiPA, not being up to speed on CISPA, the latest internet bill barreling through Congress. So, I found the below graphic, from ParaLegal.Net, pretty helpful. Created by: Paralegal.net
by Scott Macaulay on May 2, 2012
Jon Reiss Launches the TOTBO System

Jon Reiss has finally realized that the secret to indie-film tutorial success is having a catchy moniker. So, his DIY distribution-and-marketing book Think Outside the Box Office has now birthed what he is artfully dubbing “the TOTBO System.” If you’re a filmmaker, file this snazzy acronymn along GTB, Zen to Done, or 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. Oh yeah, and you need a YouTube channel too. Reiss has relaunched his under the authoritative title “TheJonReiss.” Each week he’ll be posting excerpts from his workshops, which I recommend to anyone considering releasing his or her own film. Here he is […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 1, 2012
Five Questions with Jessica Oreck About Her New Kickstarter Project

With her debut documentary, Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo, Jessica Oreck reinvented the nature doc. Oreck, an entomologist who worked as a docent at the American Museum of Natural History, made a film about an insect that was as much about man’s fascination with that creature as it was the creature itself. To top it off, she made her poetic and allusive picture in Japan, exploring the country’s endemic beetle-mania through evocative cinematography and haunting voiceover. When so many documentary filmmakers make their artistic choices based on the desires of their funders, Oreck chooses the harder path. Her latest film, Aatsinki, […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 1, 2012
ANDREW DOSUNMU TALKS THE BEAUTY OF “RESTLESS CITY”

Andrew Dosunmu’s debut fiction feature, Restless City (currently in release from AFFRM in New York, L.A. and Atlanta), is perhaps the most ravishing film you’ll see on a movie screen right now. An immigrant crime drama set along Canal Street about a Senagalese motorcycle messenger, a local crime boss, and the beautiful woman that comes between them, the film combines the sensitive eye of Dosunmu, a fashion photographer and music video director, with the masterful cinematography of Bradford Young. The result is a film that reimagines our urban landscape in bold, fresh ways. I interviewed Dosunmu for the current issue […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 28, 2012
DAVID LOWERY, ROONEY MARA SET TO TEAM ON NEW PICTURE

David Lowery, one of Filmmaker’s 2011 “25 New Faces,” is set to direct a new, “contemporary western” that teams him with three others from our annual talent survey. As announced by Deadline, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints is set to star Rooney Mara (picked for our 2009 list) and will be produced by a team including Jay Van Hoy and Lars Knudsen (from our 2006 list). Ben Foster and Casey Affleck are also attached; James Johnston, Toby Halbrooks, Amy Kaufman also produce; and the pic is repped by WME Global. Evolution Independent’s Cassian Elwes is putting together the financing. Lowery’s Pioneer […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 28, 2012
LETHEM TALKS MUMBLECORE AND MORE AT SIFF

I’ve always connected with the work of Jonathan Lethem. I’m a fan of his novels and all, but I especially look at his criticism because his reference points are invariably the same as mine. We’re both big Philip K. Dick fans, he ended a novel (Fortress of Solitude) with an extended celebration of one of my favorite albums (Another Green World), and when he wrote an essay on his formative books and albums as a teenager, our lists were like dopplegangers. He also just wrote a book about Talking Heads Fear of Music, and his Promiscuous Materials project let independent […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 26, 2012
TRAILER WATCH: “REDLEGS”

Over the last year Filmmaker Contributing Editor Brandon Harris has been making his first feature, Redlegs, and it receives a sneak preview next Thursday at Brooklyn’s reRun, sponsored by the Brooklyn Arts Council. It then opens for a week on May 25 at that same venue. Check out the trailer below. (There’s also a Tumblr blog, where Harris is promising “goofy, poignant and otherwise unmissable stuff.”)
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 26, 2012
FROM AN ABANDONED FARM TO THE TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL

Critic and cultural forager Nick Rombes is making an artistic practice of unexpected connections, chance encounters and disrupting the temporal logics of cinematic narrative. Filmmaker readers know him well for his on-going The Blue Velvet Project, but he has other ventures, including recently, the “Do Not Screen/Ceremony” series. “Do Not Screen/Ceremony” was birthed when, while on a long, late-night drive, Rombes pulled over to the side of the road and decided to explore an abandoned barn nearby. There, he found a box containing film strips cut in 12-frame segments with the written directive, “Do Not Screen.” And then… (from Peggy […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 24, 2012
“NICKSTARTER” — MONEY FOR A GUY CALLED NICK

Very funny Kickstarter parody because, after all, life is a project too. (By the way, Filmmaker has a curated Kickstarter page, and I just added some new projects.)
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 24, 2012
Made in New York Program Expands Marketing Credit

New York City’s “Made in New York” marketing credit, which offers NY-shot movies and television productions free, co-branded citwide advertising, is expanding. Now offered to these productions are additional bus shelters, subway advertising and TV spots. Participating projects are eligible to receive the following packages (and, as noted, must pay a very small percentage of their production budget to a New York charity): A production with a below-the-line budget between $5-$10 million: 40 Bus Shelters (4 week run) 500 Subway boards (4 week run) 13,000 taxi cabs (2 week run) City covers cost of producing the creative elements production donates […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 20, 2012

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