Authors — Scott Macaulay

DAN COGAN ON THE NEW SUNDANCE PREP

Over at Ted Hope’s Truly Free Film blog, Dan Cogan, producer and financier (his Impact Partners funds socially-relevant docs and features) posts advice for filmmakers who may, depending on a phone call they get this week, be looking to leverage the boost that a Sundance selection will bring them. Interestingly, the piece is titled “What Financiers Want Now,” suggesting a shift in the desired rhetoric of an indie film pitch. Rather than endorse the traditional high-risk/high-reward model of most indie-film business plans, Cogan and his company emphasize the filmmaker’s ability to mobilize the multiple smaller revenue streams that arise from […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 26, 2008
MOVIEMAKING ON THE CANON EOS 5D

Billed as the first short film shot on the new Canon EOS 5D still camera, here is “Tokyo Reality.” Hat tip: Movie City Indie. Tokyo Reality (Canon 5D MarkII) from utsuru on Vimeo.
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 25, 2008
HARVEY MILK AT 575 CASTRO STREET

New on the FilmInFocus site is “575 Castro Street,” a short film by San Francisco filmmaker Jenni Olson (The Joy of Life). The film contains images shot on the set of Gus Van Sant’s film over which audio from the real Harvey Milk is played. Excerpted from her director’s statement, which can be read in full at the link above: The visuals of 575 Castro St. (the play of light and shadow upon the walls of the Castro Camera set for Gus Van Sant’s Milk) harken back to those gay short films of the ‘70s: The films that passed through […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 25, 2008
RANDALL SHARP, HENRY MAY LONG AND MAX RICHTER

Over on the main page, check out Alicia Van Couvering’s interview with Randall Sharp, director of the indie anomaly Henry May Long that plays at New York’s Sunshine Theater this week. I call it an anomaly, because you don’t see many elegant turn-of-the-centry period dramas arising from the Gotham indie scene. Here, Sharp tells Van Couvering why she chose to set her tale in 1887: I felt like setting it in that period would wake up the story again. Otherwise it’s just another guy shooting heroin, another gay guy who loved a straight guy. Also it’s a way to say, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 25, 2008
RADDON RESIGNS FROM THE L.A. FILM FESTIVAL

David Poland posted on his Hot Blog early this morning that Rich Raddon, the director of Film Independent’s L.A. Film Festival who found himself under fire when it was reported that he donated $1,500 in support of California’s anti-gay-marriage Proposition 8, has resigned. Mike Jones now has a story at Variety that contains two statements. First, from Raddon: “I feel honored to have worked with such a wonderful group of people at the Los Angeles Film Festival over the last nine years. I am proud of our accomplishments. And I am proud to have worked at Film Independent, an organization […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 25, 2008
HOLLYWOOD IN THE UAE

With Robert DeNiro announcing that
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 25, 2008
CRITERION LAUNCHES ONLINE STORE

The Criterion Company has arguably created the most successful art-film related brand when it comes to monetizing the idea of cinematic value. Many people buy their DVDs for the same reason my parents used to line our bookshelves with Modern Library editions of the classics. They are titles that if one is cultured one should know about. They rarely sell the idea of excitement or entertainment; instead, with their director-approved transfers and culturally dense supporting materials, they sell the idea of connoisseurship and erudition. Until now, that idea has always rested in physicality of their beautifully packaged disks. Now, the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 25, 2008
LIGHTS OUT FOR NEW YORK CITY

Filmmaker Ian Cheney, co-producer of King Corn, and director of the forthcoming The City Dark, and Emily Bolevice, a teacher and freelance photographer, have created a lovely video op-ed for the New York Times. It argues that the city should cut back on the night lighting of public buildings as a way of dealing with the coming budget gap, and it is illustrated with beautiful night-time photography of the city. The City Dark is a feature dealing with the fascinating subject of light pollution. For more on the movie click on the link. The Times video is not embeddable, so […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 24, 2008
ANTONIO CAMPOS ON AFTERSCHOOL

For the final artist statement in our check-in with the “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You” directors, whose pictures can be seen at MOMA this weekend, here is what Afterschool director Antonio Campos emailed to the blog. (Afterschool plays tomorrow at 5:30pm). I also point you towards BFNP juror Brandon Harris’s compelling argument for the film over at Hammer to Nail. An excerpt: Afterschool is a movie not unlike so many punky, fishnet wearing, Sartre reading high school students; the type you don’t often encounter in this kind of picture. Like that tired cliché for transitory and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 22, 2008
CATHERINE HARDWICKE ON TWILIGHT

At Filmmaker, we like to keep up with the directors who we have supported early in their careers. Back in Summer, 2003, we placed Catherine Hardwicke’s Thirteen on the cover. Now, three films and five years later, she is at the helm of a genuine pop-cult phenomenon: Twilight, adapted from Stephanie Meyer’s best-selling teen novels. Over in our web exclusives, Alicia Van Couvering catches up with Hardwicke on the eve of the film’s release and discusses things like teenage lust, vampires on jet-skis, casting Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, and how you could always use a little more money. An […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 21, 2008

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