Authors — Scott Macaulay

SAG NIXES GUARANTEED COMPLETION CONTRACTS

Just a couple of days after I noted SAG’s response to the question of whether or not studios could acquire films made under their Guaranteed Completion Contracts, the guild has now decided to stop issuing these waivers to indie films entirely. Dave McNary reports in Variety: With a SAG strike becoming less likely, the Screen Actors Guild has announced it’s pulled the plug on offering waivers to indie film producers that would allow production to continue if there’s a work stoppage. SAG made the brief announcement Friday evening, suspending a program that’s covered over 800 productions in about a year. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 17, 2009
SIN NOMBRE, SUNDANCE TO SUNDANCE

I wrote for the FilmInFocus site a piece on Cary Fukunaga’s journey from Sundance (the festival in 2005 and Labs in 2006) to Sundance (this year’s Dramatic Competition with his film, Sin Nombre). Fukunaga was one of our “25 New Faces,” and we are big fans of his. In the piece, I recount his work at the Labs and hear from the actors about the way in which they worked with on the set.
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 16, 2009
“YOU WONT MISS ME'”S RY RUSSO-YOUNG By Alicia Van Couvering

You Wont Miss Me is Ry Russo-Young’s second feature, and her first in Sundance. Orphans, which premiered at SXSW last year, was a Bergman-esque tale of two sisters, now separated, who come together in their parents’ sprawling, snow-bound house to hack emotional pieces out of one another. You Wont Miss Me is very different in style and tone. It uses experimental film techniques – disjointed narrative, a salad of film and video formats – to paint a portrait of one desperate, uncensored, sexy wreck of a young woman named Shelly Brown. Russo-Young invented the character with the film’s star, Stella […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 16, 2009
OPENING SLAMDANCE WITH “I SELL THE DEAD” By Alicia Van Couvering

Glenn McQuaid’s I Sell The Dead, starring Dominic Monaghan and Ron Perlman, will open Slamdance this year. Taglined “Never Trust a Corpse,” it’s a vintage-inspired horror-comedy set in the 18th or 19th-century, structured as a series of drunken recollections on the life of a career grave robber (Monaghan.) The film is produced by and co-stars horror-master Larry Fessenden (Wendigo, The Last Winter, Habit) of the New York production outfit Glass Eye Pix. The team behind ISTD – McQuaid, Fessenden and Scareflix producer Peter Phok — sat down with Filmmaker on the eve of their trip to Park City to reminisce […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 16, 2009
CROSSING OVER AT SUNDANCE: MELISSA AUF DER MAUR By Alicia Van Couvering

“I’m not interested in the relationship of color or form or anything else. I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on.” — Mark Rothko Doesn’t it make sense that every professional artist would have ideas in between mediums, would collaborate across categorical boundaries and make new and different work as their vision expands over their lifetime? It would seem to make perfect sense, but it doesn’t happen as often as it could. This year at Sundance, though, there are several artists who wouldn’t necessarily call themselves “filmmakers” on their tax returns, and who are […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 16, 2009
TED HOPE SPEAKS AT SUNDANCE’S ARTHOUSE CONVERGENCE CONFERENCE

Ted Hope gave the closing speech at the festival’s conference bringing together exhibitors and filmmakers. It’s long, and I’m packing and getting ready to head to the airport, so I don’t have time to read it carefully and post my thoughts, but I’ll try to in the next couple of days. For now, I’m linking to it and running the first three paragraphs here. Read it and post your thoughts. The beginning: In case you haven’t heard, our business is in the midst of a transformation from a limited supply gatekeeper entertainment economy based on impulse buys to a new […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 15, 2009
CHALLENGING THE SUNDANCE SOURPUSSES

Over at Movie City News’s “10 Days of Sundance,” Ray Pride has posted a spirited rejoinder to some of the online Sundance sourpusses who are either celebrating their non-attendance or kvetching already about the shuttle and movie lines they’ll be standing in. Encompassing Dennis Hopper, the Joker, Sarah Palin and Lance Hammer, it begins: THE OTHER DAY, I READ A CYNICAL PIECE OF TRASH by someone who hates this film festival among other things in her or his life and career. It infuriated me. I wish it could be forgotten, made unread. The bit read like some other pieces, about […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 15, 2009
ADVICE FROM THE FRONT LINES: SUNDANCE SURVIVAL TIPS By Alicia Van Couvering

More than anything, Sundance is a survival game. Here are some tips from veterans on how to make it through your stay there. Park City Fashion: You shouldn’t be embarrassed about skiing down to Main Street and going straight to a screening. It’s cool to show up at the Egyptian in your snow gear. — Jeff Abramson, Gen Art Budget Control: The more time you spend in an actual theater the less chance you have of buying rounds in bars and other more frivolous expenses. Rather than partying, choose that midnight movie instead! — Michael Tully, Hammertonail.com Housing Strategy: Wait […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 15, 2009
SAG ON A SUNDANCE ACQUISITIONS SHUT-OUT

Michael Cieply had a provocative piece this morning in the New York Times’ Carpetbagger blog in which he wondered: An interesting question — and at this point, it’s only that — has been floating among the people who buy movie rights for big studios and their specialty divisions at festivals like Sundance, which begins on Thursday: Can they, or should they, buy films that were produced under waiver agreements with the Screen Actors Guild? Because these waiver agreements oblige filmmakers to adhere to the final terms of the SAG-AMPTP contract, and that contract has not been negotiated, the thinking goes […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 14, 2009
FILMMAKER @ PARK CITY ’09

Filmmaker leaves for Sundance on Thursday and before leaving we’ve launched our Sundance micro-site, where you’ll find all of our blog, feature, news and interview coverage of the festival. Check it now — a number of pieces are up, including Alicia Van Couvering’s conversations with filmmakers anticipating Sundance, my piece on the Sundance Archive Program and Anthony Kaufman’s article on LGBT filmmaking at Sundance following the Prop-8 battle. We’ll also be running each day responses from filmmakers to our annual Sundance question. This year we asked directors how their conception of story was affected by the changes occurring across our […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 13, 2009

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