Authors — Scott Macaulay

STAIR MASTER

Joe Swanberg’s latest picture, Hannah Takes the Stairs, premiered here at SXSW tonight (it’s not in Competition, so I missed it — I’m on the jury and was watching another film at the time) — and Ray Pride has a mammoth interview up with the director. Here Swanberg talks about how he developed the film and got it produced following a meeting with producer Anish Savjanti here at the festival last year. [Anish] is from Austin. He saw LOL [at SxSW] and he came to the LOL party that night, said, “I like it, let’s talk.” I think three weeks […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 11, 2007
GIFTS GIVEN AND RECEIVED

Jonathan Lethem (Motherless Brooklyn, The Fortress of Solitude) has a new novel out (You Don’t Love Me Yet, reviewed here in the Village Voice), a brilliant essay in Harper’s entitled The Ecstasy of Influence, and, on his website,, a provocatively intentioned yet wonderfully generous gift for young filmmakers. Before we get that incredible offer, I want to talk about the essay. I won’t spoil the astonishing reveal contained within its afterward — and I must insist you read it until the end — but even without clueing you in to the entirety of Lethem’s conception, I can say that the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 9, 2007
RUBIK’S PART DEUX

I’m a bit late in posting this, but here’s Michel Gondry’s latest puzzle posting in which solves a Rubik’s cube with his nose.
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 6, 2007
RECOMMENDED READING, PART TWO

I want to bump producer Ted Hope’s response to the “Recommended Reading” post, below, to the main blog because he expanded upon the concept of the list by naming three non-film books (and one other non-obvious selection) that challenge us to think about cinema and image-making in new ways. Here’s what Ted wrote: When I think of the books that meant the most to me during my initial forays into film production, four you don’t yet have listed there really stand out. All the books listed are about the doing, not the thought process beforehand, which to me, still remains […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 6, 2007
POLITICAL MASH UP

Possibly the first of what will be countless political 2008 campaign mash-ups has appeared on YouTube. And even with its subject transposed, Ridley Scott’s famous “1984” Apple Super Bowl ad — here, retooled by a Barack Obama supporter — packs a punch.
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 5, 2007
THE POSTMODERN AESTHETIC

Over at Movie City News, screenwriter Larry Gross has penned the most provocative review of Fincher’s Zodiac yet. His lede: Zodiac is an important postmodern work. It’s an authentically “new” and even experimental thing attempting, to quote from Susan Sontag’s essay “Against Interpretation,” to put content in its place. It’s very very much a film constructed on a 21st century conception of information as a non-substantive, purely relational digital phenomenon, and the fact that it was shot on video and exists immaterially as digital information is thus not a merely decorative issue but crucial to its meaning.
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 4, 2007
RECOMMENDED READING

Jumping off Bridges director Kat Candler is teaching a film class this semester, and to compile the syllabus she asked her filmmaker friends to put together a “recommended reading” list comprised of books that have helped them in their professional lives. She agreed to let me publish this list, so here it is below, grouped by filmmaking discipline, with the names of the filmmakers who recommended each book in parentheses after the title. Screenwriting The Ice Storm: The Shooting Script (Newmarket Shooting Script Series Book) by James Schamus (Kat Candler) Sex, Lies and Videotape (Faber Reel Classics) by Steven Soderberg […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 3, 2007
FIRST STEPS

The film, That, may just be a 39-minute “snowboarding epic,” but independent filmmakers should take note of it because, according to Variety, it’s the first piece of independently distributed media on the Apple iTunes Movie Store. The pic was produced by Forum Snowboards, and here’s the trade mag described its journey to iTunes: Forum first asked its DVD distrib to gets “That” onto iTunes. When it didn’t succeed, the company started talking to Apple directly. Though iTunes does sell some short films in its movies section for $1.99, they all come from established names such as Shorts Intl. and Sundance. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 1, 2007
SHORT FILM CONFESSIONS

In 2004 Cinevegas and Sundance programmer Mike Plante wrote a piece for us titled “Confessions of a Short Film Programmer” in which he listed the ingredients that make a short film impress festival selection committees. Now he’s got a new website, “I Blame Society,” with both a photo blog as well as a blog tied to his film zine Cinemad. On his latest post, he references the Filmmaker article and adds an addendum, which I’ll repost here: One of the things I did not mention in the article: why do film schools try to teach students by showing them features […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 28, 2007
CANNES DO SPIRIT

Over at their MySpace page, the American Pavilion at the Cannes Film Festival is announcing the First Annual American Pavilion Student Filmmaker Program Short Film Contest (whew!). The deadline is March 9, and submitted films should tackle the question, “How will Cannes 07 change your life?” The prize? A trip to the Cannes Film Festival. For more info, click on the MySpace page above or visit the American Pavilion website.
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 27, 2007

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