Authors — Scott Macaulay
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What Would You Like to See at Filmmaker in 2017?
One of the challenges facing sites covering film and media these days is one of content overload and focus. As boundaries between fields start to blur, as television, gaming and virtual reality start grabbing cultural mindshare, there’s a question, for us, of where to devote the resources of our small staff and band of freelancers. Additionally, Filmmaker prides itself on being accessible to its readers, and that poses challenges too, with a large number of questions and comments arriving across multiple social platforms. So, to start off 2017, we’re asking for your anonymous feedback. Simply, what would you like to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 1, 2017 -
Is Section 181, Film Federal Tax Incentive, “Dead” in a New Trump Administration?
Section 181, the Federal tax incentive spurring the production of film and television in the United States is about to suffer, reports David Robb at Deadline, “a quiet death” — at least for the time being. Filmmaker has covered Section 181 extensively, with Daniel J. Coplan’s article from last summer explaining in detail how the incentive benefits independent film producers and investors. In brief, it allows investors to deduct 100% of their investment against their Federal taxes in the year of the investment. That’s opposed to depreciating that investment over multiple years. For a high net work individual, that could […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 30, 2016 -
The 20 Most Popular Posts of 2016
Again in 2016, when compiling this list of our 20 most popular posts on the site, I was gratified to see our customarily high substance-to-clickbait ratio holding steady. As always, our “top posts of the year” list is broken in two. There is a list of the top ten new pieces published in 2016, and then a list of the top ten previously published, or archival, posts. Befitting the magazine’s mission, there’s a strong current of practical filmmaking advice and DIY tutorials here, ranging from casting, finding a producer, developing a script and more. In terms of the newly published […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 29, 2016 -
Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment and Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema Launch Women’s TV Pilot Contest
The Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME) and Brooklyn College’s Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema have launched a contest that will award two New York City screenwriters the development and production of their scripts as pilots to be aired on NYC Media. One of the two winners will see their pilot be developed into four further episodes. The scripts — which must be “by, for and about women” — will be selected by a panel of industry leaders, says the press release, and will be produced by graduates of the Feirstein School “under the mentorship of Jonathan Wacks and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 16, 2016 -
Watch Five Great Films this Weekend at our MoMA “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You” Series
Filmmaker‘s annual collaboration with the Museum of Modern’s Film Department, the Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You, series returns this weekend for its 11th edition. Curated by MoMA’s Sophie Cavoulacos the IFP’s Milton Tabbot and Zachary Mandinach, and, from Filmmaker, Vadim Rizov and myself, the series is our pick of five great films that, in this download, streaming, pay per view era, deserve most especially to be seen on the big screen. Each year we think we’re going to struggle to find five films that meet our exacting standards — five pictures that both haven’t gotten distribution […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 15, 2016 -
“Don’t Tell Me What I Already Know”: How Steven Soderbergh Reinvents the Art of Information-Giving
“Do we understand…” How many times have the filmmakers in our audience read those words within the body of studio notes? Do we understand his or her motivation? Do we understand the stakes? Do we understand the backstory? Because moments of information-dispensing rarely provide cinema’s most thrilling, mysterious, poetic moments, they are often realized by filmmakers in the most prosaic of ways. Dialogue in a scene covered with a pretty basic sequence of shots. Let’s just get through this, you can feel the directors — and screenwriters — saying. But, as this video essay by Writing with the Camera shows, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 12, 2016 -
Writer/Director Matthew Ross and Producers Jay Van Hoy and John Baker on Making the Vegas-set Neo-Noir, Frank and Lola
Longtime Filmmaker readers will instantly recognize writer/director Matt Ross as our former Managing Editor, whose intelligent and probing interviews with directors like Robert Altman, Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney — to say nothing of his sit-down with critic Armond White — were staples in this publication in the early to mid-aughts. In 2006, Ross, who had made two short films and written a pair of scripts left the magazine to go make his debut feature, the darkly compelling Frank & Lola. A Vegas-set psychosexual love story, Frank & Lola stars Michael Shannon as an ambitious, tightly-wound star chef working in […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 12, 2016 -
Podcast: Alix Lambert Interviews Westworld Stunt Coordinator Mike Watson
In one of our occasional Filmmaker podcasts, director, artist and writer Alix Lambert interviews here stunt coordinator Mike Watson, whose work can be seen on HBO’s Westworld, which has its season finale tomorrow night. In addition to Westworld, Watson’s over 70 credits include films like Django Unchained, Hail Caesar!, Lost Highway, Rambo 3 and Silverardo. He was also the stunt coordinator for HBO’s Deadworld, which Lambert wrote for, and for the network’s subsequent David Milch series, John from Cincinnati, on which Lambert was an associate producer. In this wide-ranging conversation, the two discuss Watson’s background, what makes a good fight […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 3, 2016 -
Writer Director Sophia Takal on Persona, Female Aggression and Her Psychological Thiller, Always Shine
Following its New York premiere this past Thanksgiving weekend, Sophia Takal’s highly recommended psychological drama Always Shine opens today in 16 markets across the United States. When the film premiered at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, I wrote Sophia Takal makes her long-awaited to follow-up to her microbudget stunner Green with Always Shine, which takes the abstracted psychological thriller aspects of her debut and warps them into, well, a crafty, intelligent and altogether satisfying psychological thriller. It’s Persona meets Mulholland Drive meets Single White Female as a weekend getaway between two old actress friends goes horribly awry. Caitlin Fitzgerald is […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 2, 2016 -
“Translating Interiority for the Screen”: Moonlight Director Barry Jenkins on Wong Kar-wai
Criterion has debuted a new video series, “Under the Influence,” in which, you guessed, directors talk the filmmakers who influence and inspire them. Opening the series is Moonlight director Barry Jenkins on the cinema of Wong Kar-wai. Specifically talking about Chungking Express and In the Mood for Love, Jenkins hails Wong’s ability to do something “they tell you not to do in film school,” which is to “translate interiority for the screen.” Anyone seeing Jenkins’ Moonlight, winner of the last night’s Gotham Award for Best Picture, will recognize the influence of Wong on Jenkins’ own expressive depiction of internal emotions […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 29, 2016
