Authors — Scott Macaulay

THOUGHTS ON MAX RICHTER AND FILM

I wrote the below for Filmmaker’s weekly newsletter back in late August when the digital iTunes version of Max Richter’s new album was released. (Each week in the newsletter I try to write something that’s different from what appears on the blog — if you don’t get the newsletter, you can subscribe by submitting your email address at left). Now the CD is out and in the stores, so I thought I’d repost what I wrote here — a kind of musing on the record and some of the new-media related thoughts it inspired. I’ve been listening lately to Max […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 25, 2008
WORD OF MOUTH: RECAPPING "THE CONVERSATION"

I wasn’t able to make it out to The Conversation in Berkeley last weekend, but I heard great things from people who did attend. In a post on his CinemaTech blog, organizer Scott Kirsner gives a quick run-through of some of the highlights. Here, for example, is one of the 15 or so brief bullet points he includes in the post — from Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, a discussion of the “90-minute-plus chunk of viewing time” that he says is on the decline. Reed Hastings, founder and CEO of Netflix, participated in a great on-stage interview with filmmaker (and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 24, 2008
THE HORROR, THE HORROR (THE ECONOMY AND REPO: THE GENETIC OPERA)

The always excellent KCRW podcast “The Business” has an interesting juxtaposition today. The first half of the program features an interview with Monica Karo, President of Integrated Sales, OMD on the effect of the recession on TV ad buying. The second half is an interview with Saw 2, 3, and 4 director Darren Lynn Bousman on his seven-or-so year saga to bring Repo: The Genetic Opera to the screen. “Darren Lynn Bousman was a kid who loved rock opera… and he’s got the wedgies to prove it,” says The Business’s Claude Brodesser-Akner as he intros the latter segment. In it, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 23, 2008
A COMMUNITY HAS GOT MILK

One of the challenges any film faces these days is building a community of people around it — an audience that is energized and inspired by not just the movie, when it comes out, but the idea of the movie before it hits the theaters. One film sure to draw passionate engagement is Gus Van Sant’s upcoming Milk, and already its website is drawing moving and personal postings on Harvey Milk and his importance to multiple generations of gay and lesbian men and women. Check out the Milk site and read not only about Harvey Milk’s life but also the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 23, 2008
SHOOTING AND LIGHTING ROUTE 30

On his blog, The Camera Eye, D.P. Keith Duggan has a straightforward, practical post on how he shot and lit the low-budget road movie Route 30. The film stars Dana Delany and is described as a “hilarious backwoods comedy,” and it was made with “no AD’s, no honeywagons, no equipment trucks of any kind.” But shooting on two Panasonic HVX200 cameras and carrying four P2 cards and a small amount of lighting and grip equipment in half the interior and on the roof rack of the director’s SUV, Duggan found a way to light the movie and give it a […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 22, 2008
READING (AND LOOKING AT) SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK

William Horberg, exec producer of Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York, has a blog, and in today’s post he compares his first reading of Kaufman’s script — in one of those annoying “you have to read this in two hours and then hand back immediately to a bonded messenger” sittings — to his first assignment at script coverage back in 1986. (Hat tip: Ted Hope.) From the piece: As a test, the first screenplay I was given to read and analyze as a sample of my reading, writing and comprehension was, believe it or not, How To Get Ahead In Advertising, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 22, 2008
BALLAST ANNOUNCES SCREENING DATES

Ballast, which picked up several Gotham Award nominations yesterday, closes at New York’s Film Forum today But the film’s website has just been updated with screening dates across the county as well as in New York. (The film will move to the Cinema Village and the Brooklyn Heights Cinema for one week beginning Friday.) Here are the other upcoming dates that have been announced so far: Walker Art Center Minneapolis MN Oct 29 Q&A with director Lance Hammer following screening. Music Box Theatre Chicago IL Oct 31 – Nov 06 Q&A with filmmaker Lance Hammer on Friday, October 31. Screening […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 21, 2008
FROM THE MOUTHS OF BABES

If you saw the original interview — or even if you didn’t — this is hilarious. See more funny videos at Funny or Die
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 20, 2008
THE POST-FESTIVAL WORLD

After I produced my first feature (Tom Noonan’s What Happened Was…), I imagined what my next year would be like. I’d be flying all over the world going to countless festivals with the film. But I quickly realized two things. One, festivals don’t care much about hosting producers, and, two, I wasn’t flush enough to float myself on a year of globetrotting and had to get back to work. In today’s diminished conventional distribution environment, film festivals are increasingly seen by first-time filmmakers not as tony travel spots but rather as cogs in a new machine that might connect them […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 18, 2008
THE NAME GAME

Digital Strategist/Consultant Alex Johnson, who writes at, among other places, The Workbook Project (and is one of the professionals featured in its Mindshare Program) has a really interesting essay up on the site discussing the value of a name. No, not a well known actor who is attached to your film, but your name, and how that moniker can help (or hurt) you in the Google-ruled world of online brand recognition. Starting off by discussing her problems of being commonly named, she goes on to detail what she’s done about it while also musing on the pro’s and con’s of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 18, 2008

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