Authors — Scott Macaulay
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FIRST iPAD REVIEWS HIT THE ‘NET
The first round of Apple iPad reviews has hit the ‘net. David Pogue of the New York Times split his somewhat muted review into two points-of-view: the tech geek and everyone else. He begins both by writing, “The Apple iPad is basically a giant iPod Touch.’ The tech geek POV review is mixed; the “everyone else” pretty positive. Edward Baig in USA Today is less equivocal: The first iPad is a winner. It stacks up as a formidable electronic-reader rival for Amazon’s Kindle. It gives portable game machines from Nintendo and Sony a run for their money. At the very […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 31, 2010 -
NEW INDIE FILM MONETIZATION PLAN: SUING DOWNLOADERS
In a surprising Hollywood Reporter article, Eriq Gardner discovers a new indie film monetization scheme. He quotes Jeffrey Weaver of the D.C.-based U.S. Copyright Group who says of his company’s work, “We’re creating a revenue stream and monetizing the equivalent of an alternative distribution channel.” Like many others in the indie community, Weaver’s efforts involve torrents. In his case, however, the company is not using torrent sites as a no-cost means of cultivating an audience but rather as objects of prosecution. From Gardner’s piece: In what may be a sign of things to come, more than 20,000 individual movie torrent […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 31, 2010 -
SCARFACE REVEALED
In my post below about “Scarface School Play” I injected a healthy note of skepticism that any school would sanction a school play in which mounds of popcorn stood in for Tony Montana’s cocaine. Now, TMZ is reporting that the video was indeed a fake. According to the site: Instead, it’s the work of director Marc Klasfeld and Rockhard Films who did the videos for Lady Gaga’s “Pokerface” and Adam Lambert’s “For Your Entertainment.” It was produced in L.A. within the last few weeks and the audience members were a mix of cast family members, colleagues and friends. As Travis […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 30, 2010 -
SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND
I don’t post a lot of amateur video on the site… but I’m making an exception. Real school play or performance art prank? America’s Funniest Home Video or an homage to George Kuchar? A tribute to the imagination of today’s youth or a disturbing wake-up call about the next generation? The video claims to be posted by Bartonville, IL homemaker Cindy S., who lists her favorite movie as The Passion of the Christ, her favorite book as Going Rogue, and who may have filmed her son Jaydon in his school play doing… Scarface.
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 29, 2010 -
TIME MACHINING GOOD MACHINE
Last week when I intro’d a piece on Don Hahn and Peter Schneider’s Waking Sleeping Beauty, I wrote that every mid-career filmmaker must desire at some point a better record of his or her early days. In that vein, I came across on Ted Hope’s blog this little excerpt of a TV profile on his production company with James Schamus, Good Machine. It’s a great blast from the past, especially watching Good Machine staffers bustle through their office, stacked with papers and scripts and lined with posters, on West 25th. Needless to say, while this may be almost two decades […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 29, 2010 -
KICKSTARTING “BAD FEVER”
Here’s how writer/director/producer Dustin Guy Defa describes his new film, Bad Fever: Bad Fever is a film about loneliness. It’s about being alone and hating being alone and then finding somebody to be with but hating that too because it doesn’t feel any different or at least any less lonely. Do you ever feel shitty and wonder why everyone thinks you’re okay, and then when you do finally feel good about yourself everyone else starts to ask what’s wrong with you? It’s about that too. It’s about Eddie, who lives with his mother, and it’s about all of his hopeless […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 29, 2010 -
Kenneth Turan Crosses The Line
One basic rule of film directing that any beginner is taught is to “not cross the line.” I’m referring to what is sometimes called “the director’s line,” the imaginary boundary that demarcates where the camera can be in a given scene. Simply put, when shooting a scene the camera should be somewhere within180 degrees of a line bisecting the space being shot. If the camera stays on one side of the line, editing continuity is preserved. Actors stay on the same side of the screen as opposed to jumping all over the place with every edit, and the audience is […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 28, 2010 -
Gaspar Noe’s Enter the Void Opening Credits
While checking out the Lovely Machine website because I’m doing a panel with filmmaker Gregory Bayne today at The Conversation I came across his blog, which has some very tastefully curated links. To wit: the opening credit sequence of Gaspar Noe’s Enter the Void. This has been floating around the web but it’s the first time I caught up with it online. These credits are pretty amazing — check them out. Related: Michele Civetta on Enter the Void here at Filmmaker.
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 27, 2010 -
HOW COULD CHRIS DODD’S BANKING BILL AFFECT YOUR FILM START-UP?
At his blog A VC, Fred Wilson examines a few provisions of the banking reform bill currently being debated in Congress and highlights a couple of provisions that could affect filmmakers. From his blog: 1) Changing the definition of a “qualified investor” in angel and venture deals. Not just anyone can invest in a startup company. You have to be a qualified investor. A qualified investor is currently defined as anyone with a net worth of over $1mm or net income of over $250k. Dodd’s bill would increase that to $2.3mm and $450k respectively. And then index those numbers to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 26, 2010 -
TRAILERING CATHERINE BREILLAT’S “BLUEBEARD”
On my list to see if Catherine Breillat’s Bluebeard, in which the iconoclastic French director takes on the classic tale from the point of view of two modern-day young girls. It opens today at the IFC Center. The trailer is below.
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 26, 2010
