CinemaTech’s Scott Kirsner sent me an email alerting me to a really interesting project he’s done with ITVS. From his email: Earlier this year, ITVS asked me to interview a group of documentary filmmakers who were working on the vanguard. Specifically, we wanted to focus on three things: 1. Opening up production in new ways, communicating and collaborating with the audience while a film is still in the works. 2. Distributing in new ways, through avenues like iTunes or downloads on a filmmaker’s own Web site 3. Marketing and cultivating an audience for the work in new ways, and figuring […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 13, 2008CineVegas programmer and Filmmaker contributor Mike Plante writes: “Not sure why the Off Camera festival in Krakow has gone so unnoticed in the US, maybe because it’s first time and in an unknown city – but I went and it was great, all the filmmakers and jury had a blast, and they give out 100,000 Euros in their competition. Probably the biggest prize of any festival?” Off Camera was off my radar as well, but I just checked out Mike’s blog postings and they detail a spirited fest with a good, artistically attuned line-up. Here’s his account of Holly Woodlawn […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 13, 2008Not film related (not, that is, if you don’t think the general economy has anything to do with film production, studio or independent), but congrats to Paul Krugman for his Nobel Prize in Economics, announced today. Today in the NY Times he asks whether British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has saved the world economy. That topic is also discussed by screenwriter Howard Rodman (Savage Grace) in his Huffington Post blog titled “Hank and the Swedish Model.” (That’s “Hank” as in “Paulson”).
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 13, 2008Here’s Stuart, Mickey Rourke, and the conclusion of this year’s series. Be back in a year for NYFF47.
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 13, 2008Producer Noah Harlan of 2.1 Films sent us news of his latest production: an iPhone app. Entitled the 2.1 Film Calculator, it “is a multi-purpose tool for filmmakers to aid in common tasks of film conversion and counting in pre-production, production and post-production.” From the site: Film Calculator has three basic functions: Length & Time Converter: This function allows the user quickly convert length to time and vice versa for a variety of film stocks and speeds. Choose from Super-8mm, 16mm, 35mm or 70mm stocks and preset frames per second rates (12, 24, 25, 48) or enter your own. Then […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 12, 2008Lawrence Lessig has a new book coming out this week entitled Remix, published by Penguin Press. It’s excerpted/adapted in the Wall Street Journal today; in the piece, Lessig argues that current copyright law is outdated and counterproduction, stifling both creativity and economic progress. An excerpt: The return of this “remix” culture could drive extraordinary economic growth, if encouraged, and properly balanced. It could return our culture to a practice that has marked every culture in human history — save a few in the developed world for much of the 20th century — where many create as well as consume. And […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 12, 2008Without consciously thinking about it, I regularly seem to link to Steven Klein’s photography in this blog. In August, 2005, I loved the mini-cinema that was his Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie “domestic bliss” W magazine spread. Two months late I was arrested by his collaboration with Tom Ford, also for W. His latest W piece is titled “Love/Hate,” and while it’s not as epic it is still very much worth a view. Especially great is Klein’s choice of subject: ’90s supermodel icon Linda Evangelista, who plays some kind of tormented society queen in these shots.
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 11, 2008Filmmaker‘s own Jamie Stuart is profiled in the Washington Post in the Sunday Arts and Living section by Ann Hornaday. It’s one of her “Studio” features in which artists explain the significance of one image they’ve created. The image Jamie talks about is here, and following is Hornaday’s text: For the past four years, Jamie Stuart has made short Web films at the New York Film Festival (as well as Sundance and Toronto). Commissioned by Filmmaker magazine, and with a love for the quirky detail, he has brought a poet’s eye to festival junkets, news conferences and sundry rituals of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 11, 2008Filmmaker John Magary has been writing over at the newly reinvigorated The Reeler, and he has a great interview up with director Lucrecia Martel, whose The Headless Woman is playing at the New York Film Festival. The interview comes with the drawing reprinted here, which Martel explains: Undoubtedly, all of my films are organized in layers. For example, if I had to draw it, it wouldn’t be a straight line … [drawing a single arcing line] … Normally the structure of a film would be a single line: starts here, then this happens, then it evolves, then it ends. For […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 10, 2008It used to be that you could share a movie you’ve seen by loaning a friend a DVD or just recommending that he or she go see it in the theater. Now, however, you can share your viewing queue. For example, I haven’t yet caught up to Mary Bronstein’s Yeast, which I missed at SXSW last year. It’s just been posted as an online premiere on Dailymotion, I’m planning to watch it this weekend, and I’m sharing it with you by embedding it here. In an interview posted on the Linear Reflections blog, Mary talks about her impetus to make […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 10, 2008