Authors — Scott Macaulay

THE ROOTS OF THE DARK KNIGHT?

After seeing Christopher Nolan’s dark and philosophically nimble The Dark Knight, I went back to our Winter, 2001 issue and read again Chuck Stephens’ cover interview with Nolan and his screenwriter brother Jonathan on the eve of the release of their breakthrough film, Memento. I was struck by how some of the same issues that elevate the latest Batman movie — its cinematic capturing of everyday dread, its interrogation of the role of the hero, and its clever use of film noir tropes — are discussed within the context of this earlier film. If you are a Nolan fan, check […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 6, 2008
PENNIES AND EYEBALLS

Producer Noah Harlan of 2.1 Films just came back from the Sundance Producer’s Lab and forwarded these comments about some of the topics discussed there. Like every producer, Harlan is trying to figure out what the new digital distribution landscape will look like for independents. I particularly responded here to his attempt to parse the revenue possibilities for the streaming and ad-supported models — a topic you’ve read about on this blog previously. For now, though, here’s Harlan. I just got back from the Sundance Producer’s Conference and had a few thoughts that I wanted to share with some of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 5, 2008
CREATIVE CAPITAL AND WARHOL FOUNDATION ANNOUNCE GRANTS FOR ARTS WRITERS

Since stories about declining staff opportunities for professional film critics seem to appearing all over, I thought I’d post this notice from Creative Capital and the Warhol Foundation announcing grants ranging up to $50,000 to arts writers. Although the focus is on the visual arts, the site says, “By ‘contemporary visual art,’ we mean visual art made since World War II. We will also consider projects on post-War work in adjacent fields – architecture, design, film, theater/performance, sound, etc.- if they significantly engage the discourses and concerns of contemporary visual art.” Take special note: this round of proposals specifically excludes […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 4, 2008
AVOID THAT DOG ON THE SKATEBOARD

The analysts over at Tech Ticker have posted a short video conversation about the current state and future direction of internet video and the ad market. The discussion is kicked off by a mention of Disney’s recent earnings statement and the profitability of its fairly conservative and unsexy online video division. The Tech Ticker guys go on to talking about Hulu and YouTube, particularly how the latter is struggling for the moment to sell advertising against user-generated video. The analysts say that, with the exception of entertainment companies, which will advertise on user-generated spots, most mainstream advertisers don’t want to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 4, 2008
TALKING TO THE ZELLNERS, JENKINS AND ROBIN

Short End Magazine uses the occasion of our “25 New Faces” list to recap three conversations between Noralil Ryan Fores and filmmakers from this year’s edition. You can read an interview with the Zellner Brothers and also this interview with My Olympic Summer‘s Daniel Robin, an excerpt of which is below. SM: Given four words to describe your style and four words to describe the purpose of your work, which eight words total do you chose? DR: You’re killing me. Style: personal, atmospheric, rhythm, process. Purpose: cathartic, engage, communicate, new cinema. SM: Why? DR: Well, I think for a film […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 3, 2008
FINDING THE NEW AUDIENCE

Over at The Workbook Project Lisa Salem has launched a new section of the site entitled “How to Build and Audience and Keep it.” It’s a multi-faceted section, containing both a blog as well as more organized content areas covering different aspects of audience-building and retention. Here, in a Preamble, she explains what led her to this area of specialization: I speak from a particular form of experience. In 2005 I set out to walk the whole of Los Angeles – I’d lived there for most of ten years. I pushed a baby-stroller with a video camera attached to the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 3, 2008
25 NEW FACES UPDATE #3

Here’s the third of our catch-ups with previous “25 New Faces” filmmakers. If you’ve been on the list and haven’t sent us an update, you can still email one to editor.filmmakermagazine AT gmail.com. Marshall Curry, director, 2005: Since releasing Street Fight, I have been working on two docs– one about the radical environmental group, the Earth Liberation Front, and the other about three 12-year old kids who aspire to be NASCAR drivers (they race gokarts that go 60 mph in a nationally competitive circuit that’s sort of the little leagues for NASCAR.) Both films are in post now, and the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 2, 2008
CAN ANYONE SPARE A BUSINESS MODEL?

I just finished writing the letter for this week’s Filmmaker newsletter and discussed a few thoughts prompted by my trip this past weekend to the Creative Capital retreat at Williams College. I used some discussions I had with both artists and filmmakers to think further about our need to come up with new economic (and patronage) models that can support media work in that hybrid space between the art world and conventional theatrical distribution. (By the way, if you don’t subscribe to our newsletter, you can do so here on the main page. Each week I’ve been using the space […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 31, 2008
SELF DISTRIBUTING INDIE FILM

I’m late to the linkfest on this one, but I just caught up with John Anderson’s piece in The New York Times on self-distributing indie films. It’s positioned as a trend piece, and the hook is this week’s release of Randall Miller’s Bottle Shock, which the filmmaker is getting in theaters himself with the help of Freestyle Releasing and former Picturehouse exec Dennis O’Conner. Filmmakers, of course, have been self-distributing for years — the difference now is that the specialty distribution circuit seems like such a bleak place that fewer are questioning the decision to do so. What I found […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 31, 2008
PUNISHING POLITICS

A new “Five in Focus” series launches today at FilmInFocus: five political writers or commentators discuss their five favorite films about political campaigns. Up today is a sophisticated and suprising list from Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. Along with Max Ophuls’ The Earrings of Madame De is Peter Watkins’ Punishment Park. From Perlstein’s piece: I’ve never seen a film that more convincingly projects the sheer rage Americans felt toward one another in 1970 than Peter Watkin’s astonishing mockumentary Punishment Park. In it, a group of radicals are basically tortured to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 30, 2008

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