Authors — Scott Macaulay
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AZAZEL JACOBS ON “TERRI”
Originally posted on July 6, 2011. Terri is nominated for Breakthrough Actor. Azazel Jacobs’ idiosyncratic and homespun Terri is caring riff on the alienated teenager film, making its plus-size hero a stand-in for the trepidations we all fear when our slow-motion lives begin to move just a little too fast. Here, in this video shot at Sundance 2011, Jacobs discusses how he moved from his previous feature, Momma’s Man, to Terri, and why he’s not like Alfred Hitchcock. Photographed by: Jamie Stuart. Edited by: Daniel James Scott. Music: T. Griffin. For more, read Nick Dawson’s longer interview with Azazel […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 3, 2011 -
MIRANDA JULY SHOWS YOU HOW TO BE MORE PRODUCTIVE
Productivity systems are a booming cottage industry, and while the commercial ones are aimed at businesspeople, artists are fascinated with them just as much. I met an artist/writer/actress the other night and we more or less geeked out on what productivity system we favored, debating the merits of the Four-Hour Work Week vs. Getting Things Done. At the website Nowness today, Miranda July tackles the issue of productivity in a deleted scene from her most recent film, The Future. It’s been recut and newly scored by David Byrne, and it might offer you some insight into your own patterns of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 3, 2011 -
KICKSTARTER: HAL HARTLEY’S “MEANWHILE”
Okay, first the exciting news: Hal Hartley has made a new film! What’s the “but”? Well, it’s not ready quite yet. It’s in post, though, so it’s close. To help it get to the finish line, Hartley has launched a Kickstarter campaign for its final post-production. He’s also appealingly pitched his campaign as a “DVD Collector’s Edition Pre-Buy.” For $25 you’ll receive this limited edition when the film is finished. And there are other rewards too. For example, for $1,000 you can be a co-producer. That’s right, a grand gets you a very nice IMDb credit. Here’s what Hartley writes […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 2, 2011 -
FILMMAKER PHOTOGRAPHER HENNY GARFUNKEL IN TORONTO
Reading Filmmaker online is great and all, but one thing you don’t get — in addition to about 60% of the content — is the full impact of Henny Garfunkel’s original photography. For the Fall issue, we have quite bit of her work, including the David Cronenberg cover, another Cronenberg shot inside, and full-page portraits of Jessica Chastain, Jeff Nichols, Michael Shannon, Todd Rohal, Dee Rees, Sean Durkin & Elizabeth Olson, Steve McQueen and Asghar Farhadi. The issue is on newsstands now, and you can see Garfunkle at work in Toronto, where many of these photographs were taken, in this […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 1, 2011 -
A THANKSGIVING KICKSTARTER FOR “YEAR WITHOUT RENT”
If you visit this site regularly, then you’ll know about “A Year Without Rent,” filmmaker Lucas McNelly’s Kickstarter-funded twelve-month experiment in community-minded film production and online journalism. At the beginning of this year McNelly staged a dramatic Kickstarter campaign for what seemed like a crazy goal: he’d spend twelve months crisscrossing the U.S., working for free on independent films. Then, he’d document them on his site and at places like Filmmaker, Film Courage, Film Threat and Mubi. The Kickstarter raise was successful, and McNelly has been hard at work since then — rigging lights, manning craft service, holding a boom, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 1, 2011 -
FILMMAKER PAUL RACHMAN REMEMBERS ZOE LUND
I interviewed Zoe Lund for the second issue of Filmmaker, back when we put Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant on the cover.She was the screenwriter, and she also appeared in one of the film’s most memorable scenes. Previously, Lund starred in a number of films, including Ferrara’s breakthrough, Ms. 45. Lund was fascinating, beautiful, talented, and she had a unique and powerful charisma.She died in Paris in 1999. Recently I ran into filmmaker and Slamdance co-founder Paul Rachman, and he told me about the series of short documentary films he’s making about Lund. He agreed to answer a few questions about […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 1, 2011 -
HOPE, VACHON OFFER MASTER CLASS
Many years ago Ted Hope called me up and said that I and my partner, Robin O’Hara, should be at his Good Machine office on a Saturday morning at 9:00 AM. He was doing a workshop on low-budget production and, as young producers, he thought we’d find it helpful. That was about 20 years ago, and I still remember — and rely on — stuff Hope taught that day. A lot has changed in two decades, but both Hope and producer Christine Vachon, who are teaching a master class this Saturday, have kept up with the evolution of independent film […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 31, 2011 -
JAMIE STUART IS NOW ON TWITTER
Scored, color corrected, and spikily punctuated by frames of black, of course. Bringing the social to the social network: Yes, I’m Now On Twitter from The Mutiny Company on Vimeo.
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 31, 2011 -
HALLOWEEN SHORT: “THE MAZE”
Via Coolhunting, a documentary short about an annual L.A. Halloween project: While recently exploring the southern coast of the Golden State we ended up in the Los Angeles neighborhood of El Sereno where artist Albert Reyes gave us a behind-the-scenes look at his yearly Halloween project. Since 2004 Reyes has built a Halloween maze in his backyard for a party in celebration of America’s favorite pagan holiday. Over time, the maze has evolved from a blanket tunnel held together with sticks to a full, free-standing structure, guaranteed to spook the drunk, stoned and sober alike. We got a special glimpse […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 31, 2011 -
KICKSTARTER: JENNIE LIVINGSTON’S “EARTH CAMP ONE”
Filmmaker Jennie Livingston (Paris is Burning) is raising funds for a new documentary feature, Earth Camp One, through Kickstarter. Described as both a “first-person family story” — Livingston began the film after losing four family members in five years — as well as “an essay,” the film deals with death, loss, and what she calls “the very American problem of discomfort with discomfort.” From her Kickstarter page: “To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.” –Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest In the 1970s, I went to a hippie summer camp, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 30, 2011
