Authors — Scott Macaulay

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE WORK

I always admire those who are able to lay either their professional and personal lives out online for all to see. One person who does this when it comes to his independent film producing is Muse Production’s Chris Hanley, who has made an entertaining habit of posting on his website copies of business emails he’s received under the apt header of “Scathing Letters.” For a while the letters sections was filled with angry back-and-forths from folks like Vincent Gallo and Don Murphy over older Muse projects, but Hanley has updated the site recently with two choice bits of correspondence, both […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 6, 2004
LUCKY STARS

Producer Matthew Greenfield, whose credits include Miguel Arteta’s features Star Maps, Chuck and Buck, The Good Girl and this year’s Sundance-bound The Motel recently became the Associate Director of the Feature Film Program at Sundance Institute, but he emailed the other day to tell us about his new non-film venture. He and writer Laurence Dumortier have launched Cloverfield Press, “a boutique publishing house dedicated to bringing new literary and artistic voices to a discerning public.” Graphic design is an important component of the press’s mission statement: “We hope to create books as visually beautiful as they are intellectually and emotionally […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 5, 2004
THE THERAPY OF FILMMAKING

Essential NYC weblog The Gothamist has posted this interview with actor, former therapist and filmmaker Robert Margolis. It’s part of the site’s series of pieces on interesting New Yorkers who aren’t necessarily household names but whose life and work reflect deeply on the city we at Filmmaker live and work in. Margolis’s latest film is a “faux documentary following the trials and tribulations of the fictional Robert Margolis, an actor, a pretty bad one at that, living on the fringe, trying to balance the demands and practicalities of every day life with his dream of becoming a successful actor.” From […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 5, 2004
CITY SLICKER

Chicago-based critic Ray Pride has appeared many times in Filmmaker‘s pages, but now readers can catch a daily — or, if the first week’s posts are any indication, near-hourly — dose of Pride in his new Movie City Indie blog up at the ever-growing web empire that is Movie City News. Pride’s links-scouting is already impeccable. So far he’s posted links regarding the firing of Buenos Aires Film Festival head Edgardo (Quintin) Antin, Robert Altman directing an opera based on The Wedding, Isabelle Huppert on making a new Cimino film based on an Andre Malraux novel, and Alexander Payne on […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 5, 2004
HIGH ON HI-DEF

David Poland’s Moviecity News links to this interesting interview with Mark Cuban in Business 2.0 in which the Broadcast.com, 2929, and HDNet founder (and Dallas Mavericks owner) concisely lays out his long-term vision as a digital distributor and content supplier. It’s a good read as it clearly lays out in one short article the thinking that informs Cuban’s business ventures, which include the producer of low-budget indie HD films, HDNet. Cuban disparages the DVD format (he believes they’ll be replaced by higher quality presentations delivered via satellite and broadband and stored on hard drives) and, in one great quote, dismisses […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 19, 2004
THIS DVD WILL SELF DESTRUCT IN…

In a blog entry below we reported on “window-busting” release of Chazz Palminteri’s film Noel, which will appear in theaters, on cable and on DVD all within the same month. It’s part of a marketing strategy designed to score Noel some ink in the press — perhaps to divert attention away from the reviews, which Rotten Tomatoes scores only 18% positive. In our entry we were intrigued by the release strategy, but the folks at The Movie Blog linked to this USA Today piece which describes it in more critical terms. Some of the comments in the piece, like the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 15, 2004
ON THE COUCH

At Filmmaker, we’ve interviewed documentarian Joe Berlinger and his partner Bruce Sinofsky several times over the years, and the two are always great explicators of the filmmaking process. Now Berlinger with co-writer Greg Milner has authored Metallica: This Monster Lives, the story of his and Berlinger’s making of the rock’n’roll-meets-therapy doc. And if you bookmark this blog page and skip over Filmmaker’s home page, then you’ve probably missed this downloadable Chapter Five book excerpt, in which Berlinger talks about submitting himself to therapist Phil Towle to discuss his post-Blair Witch 2 issues. Also worth noting in our on-line features section […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 13, 2004
OUT OF THE TANK

One New York indie I’ve been tracking over the last year is Kevin Jordan’s Lobster Farm, the story of two generations of one Brooklyn family struggling to hold onto the family business, a Sheepshead Bay lobster shop. Jordan’s previous pic, Smiling Fish and Goat on Fire, received much festival acclaim, and as he readies his new one for a fest premiere, he’s already picked up one high-profile supporter. Reports Michael Fleming in Variety, Martin Scorsese has agreed to put his “Martin Scorsese presents” label on the film, assuring it some degree of critical buzz. Jordan connected with Scorsese when he […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 11, 2004
CELLUAR ENTERTAINMENT

Via Variety comes this interesting subscription-only piece announcing a new spin-off for Fox’s espionage TV series 24 which reachers viewers via cell-phone. Writes Josef Adalian, “In a first-of-its-kind deal for a U.S. TV studio, 20th Century Fox TV has greenlit production of a live-action 24 spinoff skein that will be produced exclusively for cell phone users. Dubbed 24: Conspiracy, the show — featuring original characters separate from the Fox TV skein — will unfold over 24 roughly one-minute episodes; one seg will be downloaded to subscribers’ phones every week.” Premiering in the U.K., where cell phone use and 3G technology […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 10, 2004
IN HOMES FOR THE HOLIDAYS

At Filmmaker we’re always interested in alternative forms of distribution, so we took note of the unusual “window-busting” release plans for Noel, Chazz Palminteri’s directorial debut which premiered in September at the Toronto Film Festival. The sentimental holiday film which stars Susan Sarandon, Paul Walker and Penelope Cruz will premiere in theaters November 12 via The Convex Group, a new company headed by WebMD founder Jeff Arnold. Then, on Sunday, November 28 Noel will screen once on the TNT network. That day, the film will also become available to Amazon.com customers as $4.99 Flexplay DVDs, disks which erase themselves 48 […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 5, 2004

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