Authors — Scott Macaulay
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GHOSTHUNTING AT SUNDANCE
Take that, SyFy Channel! Producer, distributor, Cinemad founder, Sundance programmer and occasional Filmmaker contributor has passed along the second of his “Mike Plante’s Home Movie Show.” In the show notes, he writes: “Sundance 2012 filmmakers Brent Green, Don Hertzfeldt, Nicholas McCarthy and David Zellner go searching for ghosts in Park City. We find some ghosts but learn more about people who want to see ghosts.” If you are paranormally-inclined, check it out.
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 30, 2012 -
KASUMI REMIXES FOR THE VIMEO AWARDS
Filmmaker is a media partner for this year’s Vimeo Awards, where the Remix Category will be judged by last year’s winner, Kasumi. Below, she explains what she does in a succinct 60 seconds that also explains the video remix genre in general. Vimeo Festival + Awards Judge: Kasumi from Vimeo Festival + Awards on Vimeo. Kasumi is in the midst of fundraising for a feature-length documentary, Shockwaves. Check out her project video and more info at USAProjects.Org. And for more on the Vimeo Awards, visit their Tumblr blog.
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 28, 2012 -
MUSIC VIDEO: SHEARWATER’S “YOU AS YOU WERE”
Filmmaker and Filmmaker contributor Alix Lambert directed the new Shearwater video, which just went online. It’s from their new Animal Joy album, and, appropriately, there is animal imagery. I asked Alix about the origins of the video’s concept, and she emailed back: When I first listened to the song, I just wrote down the lyrics that most jumped out at me. The bloody nose became a thread that I wanted to go through the film. Jonathan wanted to include Nicholas Kahn’s wonderful costumes, which I was thrilled about and from there I felt like there should be some kind of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 28, 2012 -
Grover Babcock and Blue Hadaegh, Scenes of a Crime
The 2011 winner of the Filmmaker-sponsored Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You IFP Gotham Award, Grover Babcock and Blue Hadaegh’s Scenes of a Crime is a powerful social justice documentary that uses its feature-length format as its most powerful argument for the innocence of Adrian Thomas, a New York man currently inprisoned for the shaking death of his infant son. Over the course of the film’s 88 minutes, we go beyond the soundbite, watching long stretches of Thomas’s interview by two detectives — a grilling that resulted in a confession that specialists in police interrogation believe was […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 28, 2012 -
How to Create a Profitable VOD Strategy
This distribution case study of American: The Bill Hicks Story has been previously posted at Indiewire, and when it went up, I quickly scanned it and tweeted their link. But now I’ve actually had time to read it carefully, and it’s a very useful document that deserves its own place on the blog. A Powerpoint presentation prepared for a panel at this year’s SXSW moderated by Orly Ravid, the document walks you through the filmmaker’s DIY theatrical and various VOD and digital distribution deals. There are revenue numbers here, and not just for American, but also other movies released by […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 25, 2012 -
UPDATES TO OUR CURATED KICKSTARTER PAGE
I just added several projects to Filmmaker‘s curated Kickstarter page. They include Galileo, a cool new device that adds remote control functionality to your iPhone; The Miracle Mile Paradox, an ARG (alternate reality game) set in both viritual space as well as L.A.’s museum strip; The Man’s Guide to Love, a fiction feature film developed from the filmmaker’s two-year old website containing short-form doc content on men in love; The First Hope, a UCLA film student’s short about a young boy’s romantic life beginning when he sees Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia kiss; Brendt Barbur’s The Commentator, a doc featuring […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 25, 2012 -
Senate Passes JOBS Act with Modified Crowdfunding Rules
The JOBS (Jumpstart Our Small Businesses) Act, a collection of six bills intended to make it easy for small businesses to raise capital by relaxing various Securities and Exchange Commission requirements, including those related to crowdfunding, passed the Senate yesterday. It is now headed back to the House for reconciliation and could become law next week. While the House version of the bill passed swiftly with bipartisan backing, its passage through the Senate was rockier, with some Democrats and progressives warning that the bill would dilute necessary investor protections contained in the 2002, post-Enron Sarbanes Oxley Act. The bill exempts […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 23, 2012 -
FIRST TEASER UNVEILED FOR DAVID CRONENBERG’S “COSMOPOLIS”
Now that the film has come and gone, I seem to be in the minority of those who thought that David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Mind, with its viral take on the philosophy of psychology, was his most Cronenbergian film in years. But based on the just-released teaser, perhaps that crown may be more appropriately placed on his upcoming Don DeLillo adaptation, Cosmopolis. Even at only 30 seconds, many of them filled with title-cards, there’s a sense of brainy spectacle here that we haven’t seen in the director’s work in a while.
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 22, 2012 -
JAMIE STUART DISASSOCIATES SUNDANCE
For Jamie Stuart, Sundance 2012 was a schizophrenic affair. Find out why in this video he made while covering the festival for Cinelan’s Focus Forward initiative. Appearances by Filmmaker‘s founding publisher, Karol Martesko-Fenster, Filmmaker correspondent, d.p. and director David Leitner, Morgan Spurlock, Jessica Yu, Frank Langella and more. Sequelized from Focus Forward Films on Vimeo.
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 20, 2012 -
MUSIC VIDEO: SPIRITUALIZED’S “HEY JANE”
Directed by AG Rojas, the near 11-minute music video for Spiritualized’s “Hey Jane” is an epic day-in-the-life of a transsexual stripper raising two young children. It is NSFW with sexual and violent content.
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 20, 2012
