Authors — Scott Macaulay

“WE WERE HERE” DIRECTOR DAVID WEISSMAN

David Weissman moved to San Francisco in 1976 and has been a fixture of the filmmaking community there, working on films like Crumb and In the Shadow of the Stars before directing his own movie (with Bill Weber), The Cockettes, a documentary chronicle of the legendary Bay Area performance group. With his latest, We Were Here, Weissman again digs into the history of the city, this time capturing the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. The following short conversation was conducted at Sundance before the first screening of his film. We Were Here opens in New York at […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 5, 2011
DIGITAL RESUME WRITING AND THE PMD

I remember when I was a teenager sitting down with my dad and doing my resume. My father had left a 30-year government job to move into consulting and the corporate sector, and he was sending out a lot of them. I modeled mine after his. There were headings down the left side — a short-term “Goal,” experience, education, and my interests — and all the info was succinct, tabbed, bullet-pointed. It fit on one page. I haven’t done a resume in years. In film, the narrative bio is used more often. Or, an iMDb page suffices. But, after reading […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 3, 2011
APPLE RETURNS FINAL CUT STUDIO TO MARKET

Macrumors reported today that Apple is now selling again Final Cut Studio, the “old” version of its desktop editing software that was retired upon the launch of its new Final Cut Pro X. The software is not available in stores or even via online sale; customers must call 1-800-MY-APPLE to order the software. As has been reported here and elsewhere, the Final Cut Pro X release has been a controversial one. Although many editors applauded its rethought paradigm and powerful tools, just as many pointed to missing features and declared it not suitable for professional use. Final Cut Pro X […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 2, 2011
SHIA LABOEUF DIRECTS NSFW MARILYN MANSON VIDEO

Shia LaBeouf’s directing credit makes this video for Marilyn Manson’s new “Born Villain” something of a curiosity. I will give him a nod, though. Many videos from established rock stars trafficking in violence and theatricalized SM imagery gloss it up too much. But there’s something genuinely sleazy about this one, even with all the obvious references (Jodorowsky, Gilles Berquet, David Cronenberg, Cinema of Transgression). Says LaBeouf to MTV, “The song has all these references to ‘Macbeth’ and all this Shakespeare and heavy theology, so we tried to make Manson’s ‘Un Chien Andalou’ macabre ‘Macbeth’ — that’s sort of what that […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 1, 2011
MANAUGH AND TWILLEY ANNOUNCE STUDIO-X NYC

Filmmaker readers know I’m a fan of BLDGBLOG, the speculative architecture and criticism site run by Geoff Manaugh. There’s a link on our home page, and I picked the BLDGBLOG Book as one of our “Super 8” selections several issues ago. So, I was happy when Manaugh contacted me to announce he’s moving from Los Angeles to New York to embark on a new project. Manaugh and partner Nicola Twilley are co-directors of Studio-X NYC, an “off-campus event space, gallery, classroom, and urban futures think tank, part of a global network run by Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 30, 2011
HARUKI MURAKAMI ON PRE-WIRED FICTION

There’s an excerpt from Haruki Murakami’s upcoming novel, IQ84, in this week’s New Yorker. At the magazine’s website there’s an accompanying short interview, which contains this interesting exchange about fiction and our wired world. Several times recently I’ve read scripts and had to comment that they’ve failed to acknowledge the ways in which we communicate and gather information these days. Throw a cell phone or internet connection into these tales and their plots collapse. Murakami dealt with this challenge by dispensing with it; his new book is set in 1984. In this excerpt from the interview, he discusses the effect […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 30, 2011
VIDEO BLOGGING, THE FIRST AMENDMENT AND THE POLICE

In an important ruling today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston ruled in favor of a man suing the police for arresting him when he used his cell phone to record their actions in a drug arrest. The police claimed the arrest was proper due to a state law barring audio recordings without the consent of both parties. The court, however, disagreed… and video blogging played a part. Although some have argued that First Amendment protections in cases like this one should be restricted to professional journalists, the court felt differently. Here’s an excerpt from […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 29, 2011
AN ANGRY SEA

WPIX Channel 11 had a reporter out during the early hours of Hurricane Irene and caught these familiar-seeming people checking out the Hudson. Here’s Josef from the Ukraine (or, in a Bloombergian nod to Tarkovsky’s Stalker, “Zone A”).
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 29, 2011
MARK ROMANEK’S ANIMATED DANCE-OFF

Mark Romanek’s KIA ad, which was debuted on last night’s MTV Video Music Awards, got a lot of online buzz today. Just caught up with it now, and it is somewhat… weird. From Entertainment Weekly: With the help of choreographers Rich & Tone, a group of “great dancers from the East and West coast” and computer animation, Romanek had the resources to bring the latest chapter of those jamming hamsters to the small screen. “The key was making the dance great,” said Romanek. Of course, they’d need a great song to dance to. Romanek explained that while there were a […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 29, 2011
HARMONY KORINE WANTS YOU TO RISE

Harmony Korine directed and Anthony Dod Mantle shot this ad for Mahindra, the Indian multinational conglomerate. According to Ad Age, it was shot at 1,000 fps with a Phantom camera.
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 29, 2011

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