Authors — Scott Macaulay
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Reality Checks: How Film Schools are Adapting to Entertainment Industry Changes
Scan the entertainment business press and everywhere you’ll see the phrase “the great contraction.” The aftermath of COVID shutdowns, labor strikes, the wind-down of zero-interest-rate policies, the end of peak TV, changes in the competitive streaming landscape, the rise of TikTok—all have conspired to make the ever-perilous path toward a career in feature film and television even more uncertain. The economic laws of supply and demand, as they pertain to the labor market, would indicate, then, that film schools must be feeling an enrollment pinch, but talking to various graduate and undergraduate chairs and professors from across the country, that’s […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 27, 2024 -
Editor’s Letter
As I type this editor’s note, Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference, which I’ve had on YouTube in the background, has just ended. As many of you already know, the flagship announcement this year had to do with AI. Apple has dubbed its use of artificial intelligence “Apple Intelligence,” which refers to its systemwide integration across Apple operating systems and apps, use of in-house tools and privatized cloud servers. Its rebranding of the term “AI,” which didn’t even require them to change the initials, is a clever marketing move, as it elides the fact that Apple has shunned the use of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 27, 2024 -
“It Is Like a Palette Cleanser, In a Way…”: Yorgos Lanthimos on Following Poor Things with the Sardonic Portmanteau Film, Kinds of Kindness
The organizing principles of portmanteau films are often quite simplistic. A group of directors tackling a particular genre, for example, or films united by geography. An example of the latter is the straightforwardly-titled New York Stories, of which only Martin Scorsese’s “Life Lessons” is remembered much these days. Jim Jarmusch has made a few united around theme and setting — Coffee and Cigarettes, where famous actors sit down over a brew and a smoke; Night on Earth, where famous actors take cab rides in production-friendly cities around the world; and Mystery Train, where the stories are linked by a setting […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 21, 2024 -
Sundance Announces 10 2024 Producers Lab Fellows
The Sundance Institute announced today the 10 producers, and their projects, selected as Fellows for the 2024 Producers Lab. The Lab begins today and runs through June 22 at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming. From the press release: The Producers Lab nurtures emerging independent film producers with project-specific support through one-on-one meetings and intimate group sessions with veteran producer advisors. The lab encourages fellows to hone their creative instincts and problem-solving skills and to develop strategies for pitching, financing, production, navigating the marketplace, and sustainability. The 2024 cohort includes five fiction film producers and five nonfiction film producers. Fellows in […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 10, 2024 -
“It’s Not ‘Punk Rock’ To Not Have an Intimacy Coordinator”: Writer/Director/Actor Kit Zauhar on Her Airbnb Relationship Drama, This Closeness
A recent addition to Airbnb is the “Host Passport,” an enhanced information panel for those who’d like to let those who rent rooms in their places know a little bit more about them. The host’s profile picture is placed more prominently, and, if you’re hosting, the site writes, “… new sections of your profile let you share things like where you live, your hobbies, pet’s name, fun facts, and what makes staying at your place special.” Finally, hosts taking advantage of the new profile category can let renters know “how much social interaction to expect.” “Guests often enjoy spending time […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 7, 2024 -
“A Purely Rationalist Dismissal of UFOs Fails To Capture Something Essential About the Phenomenon”: Daniel Claridge and Pacho Velez on Their Tribeca-Premiering They’re Here
Unless you are buried too deep into the Plato’s Cave that UFO researchers and enthusiasts insist we are only now emerging from, it has been hard to miss that UFOs — or, as they are called now, UAPs — are having a moment. Interest in what’s out there has ebbed and flowed over the years, from speculation about Roswell, NM and Area 51, the Erich Von Daniken books of the 1970s, The X Files to, more recently, declassification of Navy videos and UAP government whistleblowers testifying before government committees. UAP sightings are increasing — partly due to Starlink — while […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 7, 2024 -
“A True Download of Her Consciousness Into What Has Now Become a Feature Film”: Director David Charles Rodrigues On His Tribeca-Premiering S/He Is Still Her/e — The Official Genesis P-Orridge Documentary
Biographies of artists have typical rises and falls, eddies into new enthusiasms and returns to consistent themes. But when it comes to musician, artist and cultural provocateur Genesis P-Orridge, such rhythms occur in truly outsized relief. In S/He Is Still Her/e — The Official Genesis P-Orridge Documentary, director Charles Rodrigues, whose previous Tribeca-premiering feature was Gay Chorus Deep South, proceeds biographically through P-Orridge’s life, from her childhood in Manchester through early assaultive work with the UK performance group COUM Transmission, industrial pioneers Throbbing Gristle and finally the more beatific psych-rock outfit Psychic TV. P-Orridge’s ultimate destination was the body-morphing Pandrogyny […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 7, 2024 -
Watch: Lynne Sachs’s Short Barbara Hammer Film, A Month of Single Frames
From our colleagues at Psyche comes a beautiful short film by Lynne Sachs that is a decades-long collaboration with the late pioneering feminist filmmaker Barbara Hammer. From the Psyche writeup: In 1998, the pioneering US feminist artist Barbara Hammer (1939-2019) spent a month at an artist residency in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Feeling “compelled to do absolutely nothing” while living in a dune shack without running water or electricity, Hammer documented her solitude with a journal, a tape recorder and a 16mm film camera. For decades, these materials remained in her personal archive, until, as Hammer was nearing the end of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 6, 2024 -
13 Films to Anticipate at the 2024 Tribeca Festival
The Tribeca Festival gets underway today through June 16 with its customary mixture of high-profile panel discussions, starry celebrity docs (tonight’s opening night is Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Trish Dalton’s Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge), new media work and American and international acquisition titles hoping to attract the eye of buyers. About the new media work, Tribeca Immersive has shied away entirely from the sort of VR/AR pieces that dominated recent Tribeca festivals, opting instead to present eight immersive art pieces at Mercer Labs. Additionally, there’s a (somewhat) controversial partnership with Open AI that will screen shorts made using the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 5, 2024 -
Baby Reindeer, Colin from Accounts and Mr. and Mrs. Smith Win at Inaugural Gotham TV Awards
Baby Reindeer, Colin from Accounts and Mr. and Mrs. Smith were among the big winners tonight at the inaugural Gotham TV Awards, held in New York City at Cipriani 25. A new awards event mounted by The Gotham Film & Media Institute, Filmmaker‘s publisher, The Gotham TV Awards were announced just this past April and honor creators of episodic TV, limited series, and non-theatrical streaming movies. Going forward, the Gotham TV awards will continue in this early June slot, before the Emmy voting window, while the organization’s long-standing Gotham Awards will remain the first Monday after Thanksgiving. This year’s Gotham […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 4, 2024
