Authors — Scott Macaulay

IFP’S FILMMAKER CONFERENCE SHAPING UP

The IFP’s Filmmaker Conference has announced the names of some of the panelists who will be taking the stage at the Puck Building in New York City next month from Sept. 16 – 21. Filmmaker Magazine’s Managing Editor Jason Guerrasio and I will be moderating a number of conversations, including those with producer Jon Kilik (Julian Schnabel’s upcoming The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Babel), former Artisan co-founder Bill Block of QED Intl., an LA-based financing, sales and production company, and former tech investor and entrepreneur Tony Liano of Cracker Content, a streaming entertainment network. Over the course of the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 9, 2007
DELIRIOUS MARKETING MADNESS

Over at the website for his film, Tom DeCillo is posting a very funny series of video podcasts in which he parodies the insanity involved in promoting an independent film — in his case, Delirious, which opens August 15th. Here DiCillo is at an early marketing meeting… and what’s scary is that I’ve been at marketing meetings only slightly less crazy than this one. And here’s the latest, in which DiCillo tries to get star Gina Gershon to do some viral marketing in a clip with the Google-friendly name of “Gina Gershon Sex Tape.”
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 8, 2007
A FAN’S NOTES

Over at his Indiewire blog, Matt Dentler posts about the planning for next year’s panels at SXSW and includes this link to a stream of the 2007 panel, “Building an Online Fan Base.” I attended this panel, which featured Lance Weiler (Head Trauma), moderator Scott Kirsner (CinemaTech), David Straus (Without A Box), Ian Schafer (Deep Focus), Scilla Andreen (IndieFlix), and thought it was a great and stimulating discussion on challenges and solutions for indies in the internet marketing space.
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 8, 2007
WE HAVE ARMAGEDDON

Boing Boing points to this hilarious, jauntily scored piece of media analysis in which the folks at iTulip annotate Jim Cramer’s CNBC meltdown yesterday in which he begged Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke to cut the discount rate tomorrow. “We have Armageddon!” he shouted, fearful that the current credit squeeze will decimate the financial industry. The iTulip people (who I know little about) provide a populist critique, wondering if free market free falls are only allowed to happen to aging industrial companies and not financial services.
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 6, 2007
THE BLEAK BEAUTY…

In Variety Todd McCarthy has penned a personal take on the death of Bergman and Antonioni that begins by rightly recognizing the privileged place they held in 20th century cinema: Are there any directors today made of such stern stuff as were Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni?As a matter of fact, there are — the likes of Hou Hsiao Hsien, Abbas Kiarostami and Bela Tarr come to mind. But the miracle of Bergman and Antonioni, who died on the same day, July 30, at the ages of 89 and 94, respectively, is that, while making films expressive of bleak, even […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 4, 2007
HOW TO PRODUCE A ONE-WEEK LONG FEATURE FILM RUN

Over at his blog, Sujewa Ekanayake takes his experience self-producing a one-week run of his feature Date Number One in an alternative venue and breaks it down into the hard numbers. He talks about staffing, projector rentals, sound and the advantages of setting up a projection space in a non-traditional venue rather than renting a theater.
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 4, 2007
THE EYE OF THE BEAR

At it’s heart, the independent film movement is driven by private equity — both the expansiveness of your college buddies or parents’ (or proverbial dentist’s) portfolio, or the adventureousness of private hedge funds looking for new investment opportunities. But the distance between macro economic goings on and the money hitting an indie filmmaker’s LLC is so vast that we often don’t consider how the broader economy is affecting our own. Here, then, is a clear and sobering article from Agonist that explains the current sub-prime mortgage mess, the possible contagion resulting from it, and both its best and or worst […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 4, 2007
HANNAH TAKES THE STAIRS TRAILER ONLINE

IGN has just posted online the trailer for Joe Swanberg’s Hannah Takes the Stairs, which Alicia Van Couvering wrote about in Filmmaker as part of her article on the so-called “mumblecore” movement. The film is getting a release through the IFC First Take series and plays at the IFC Center in New York as part of The New Talkies: Generation DIY series beginning August 22.
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 4, 2007
FILMMAKER IS 15 AND WANTS YOU!

The forthcoming fall issue of Filmmaker marks the magazine’s 15th anniversary, and, as I was having lunch the other day with Lance Weiler, he had a great idea about how you can help celebrate it with us. If you’re a long-time (or even short-time) Filmmaker reader and any particular article or interview we’ve published has helped you or informed you in any way in your filmmaking work, let us know. Write a paragraph or two about the situation and reference the original piece. We’ll edit together the best responses and run them next issue. You can send your thoughts to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 4, 2007
SLOWLY APPROACHING DARKNESS

Over at Cinemad, Nick Russell interviews filmmaker Betzy Bromberg, who is also the Director of the Film/Video Program at CalArts. Among other things Russell talks with her about her latest film, A Darkness Swallowed, which took six years to make. He describes the film as “an astrological exploration of the mind and what we call ‘memor’” as we gradually experience a slow fall, into a funnel. Using primarily close-up imagery that seems abstract at first, Bromberg creates an overall experience of distorted enclosure that lasts for days.” An excerpt: Cinemad: Do you normally give yourself plenty of time without the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 4, 2007

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