Authors — Scott Macaulay
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Watch: Three Minutes of the Most Incredible Cinematic Drone Footage
I juried the New York City Drone Film Festival last year, so I’m even more impressed with this amazing compilation reel of this year’s winners. Drone cinematography has come a long way in just a year, with some knock-out moments on this reel that move drone filming away from landscape shots and sports coverage. Don’t get me wrong — sports are big here, and some of these aerial shots of soaring snowboarders are amazing. But check out the narrative winner, The Smallest Empire, from Corridor Digital, which adds a tilt-shift technique to depict the blossoming of an entire civilization. (The […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 9, 2016 -
Sundance Labs Announce 25 Film and Theater Projects and New “Multi-Lab” Setting
The Sundance Institute today announced the anticipated rosters for its Screenwriters Lab, Documentary Edit and Story Lab and new Theatre-Makers Residency as well as a major now presentation change. For the first time, these labs will run concurrently in a “multi-Lab” format at the Sundance Resort in Utah. But the format is not just an alteration of the calendar. Individual Lab Fellows will participate in portions of the other labs, giving these Sundance programs an interdisciplinary flavor. Said Keri Putnam, Sundance Executive Director, in a statement, “The unique gathering of independent voices, for the first time in a multi-Lab setting, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 8, 2016 -
Five Questions for The View from Tall Directors Caitlin Parrish and Erica Weiss
Hailing from the Chicago theater community is A View from Tall, a debut independent feature telling a story of teen sexuality and its collision with institutional power dynamics. Directed by Caitlin Parrish and Erica Weiss, and based on Parrish’s play, the film deals with a loner teen, Justine, who is ostracized from her peers because of a sexual relationship with a teacher that became public. She bonds with her therapist, a disabled man with issues of his own. Since writing The View from Tall, playwright Parrish has become a successful television writer, working on shows like Supergirl and Under the Dome. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 6, 2016 -
Five Questions for My First Kiss and the People Involved Writer/Director Luigi Campi
Born in Rome, based in London and with a degree from Columbia University, Luigi Campi — whose debut feature, My First Kiss and the People Involved, premieres today at the Los Angeles Film Festival — is a truly international independent filmmaker. As he explains in our interview below, his Columbia colleagues are now dispersed around the globe, and his American connections and European passport allow him to slip between filmmaking scenes — or, perhaps, create a scene of his own. Witness My First Kiss, which finds him drawing fresh acting talent from the worlds of performance and visual art, music […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 5, 2016 -
R.I.P. Muhammad Ali, 1942 – 2016
Indeed, the Greatest. Remembering Muhammad Ali with this trailer from also one of the greatest sports documentaries of all times, Leon Gast’s When We Were Kings. From Edward Guthmann’s review in the San Francisco Chronicle: At the height of his stardom, Muhammad Ali was possibly the most famous man on earth. Cocky, dynamic, a tremendous athlete and a wizard at homespun, extemporaneous verbal gymnastics, Ali had the world on a string…. On a deeper level — and this is where When We Were Kings exceeds its expectations and becomes a great film — Gast examines African American pride. He records […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 4, 2016 -
Five Questions for Paint It Black Writer/Director Amber Tamblyn
Making her feature debut at the Los Angeles Film Festival is actress, writer, director and poet Amber Tamblyn with Paint It Black, an adaptation of Janet Fitch’s novel. It tells the story of two women — a punked-out nightclubber, Josie (Alia Shawkat), and an older classical pianist, Meredith (Janet McTeer) — who share a Venn-diagrammed slice of memory. Meredith is the mother of Josie’s recently suicided boyfriend, and the film finds their grief, recollections and emotional wounds intertwined within a dreamy L.A. that’s as much a psychological landscape as a real place. Below Tamblyn answers five questions about securing the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 3, 2016 -
Crime and Punishment on the L.A. Freeways: John Cassavetes Drives
Here’s a trippy short video found via the Vintage Los Angeles Facebook page, an excerpt from the 1968 French documentary, Cineaste de notre temps (1968). Shot three years earlier, it’s just John Cassavetes driving home as a French interviewer peppers him with questions he mostly nonchalantly (and most likely post-synced) answers. Not enough people in L.A. — “living by appointment,” he says. He also announces a project: Crime and Punishment as a musical. The Beach Boys play on the soundtrack.
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 1, 2016 -
Mentorless Returns from Cannes with Advice on Pitching Projects at a Major Festival
One of the best filmmaking video blogs going right now is at the Mentorless site, where filmmaker Nathalie Sejean is posting weekly about her goal of making her first feature film, In Five Years. Both Sejean and her producer, Muge Ozen, attended the Producers Network this month and returned with enough info to fill up two entries. Among the advice offered here is what online filmmakers should make sure to do to get accredited to the Cannes market, when to submit — and not submit — scripts to buyers, and how to consider whether you should even try to tackle […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 31, 2016 -
The Return of the Cassette: Prisons, “Analog Time” and a Forthcoming Feature
Filmmaker and Filmmaker contributor Alix Lambert is a guest producer on this week’s Theory of Everything, where she learns that it’s not just hipsters causing a revival in the audio cassette format but prisoners. Indeed, for most prisoners, cassettes are the only music delivery device they’re allowed. Listen to her episode, “Analog Time,” embedded here, as Lambert talks to some incarcerated men for whom cassette tapes are an escape, a salve, and even a medium of exchange. Meanwhile, Zach Taylor and Georg Petzold are finishing Cassette, “a feature-length documentary that celebrates the past, present, and future of an endearing musical […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 30, 2016 -
IFP Announces Ten New Narrative Films for Its Filmmaker Labs
The IFP announced today the ten work-in-progress narrative films that will take part in its 2016 Narrative Lab. They include a romance shot in Ukraine in the months following the 2014 revolution; a drama about the astral travels of a comatose man during what may be the apocalypse; and a comedy about house thieves trapped inside a house by its high-tech alarm system. The filmmakers, all first-time feature directors, are attending this week in New York a series of programs and mentorship sessions providing feedback on their edits as well as advice and counsel on festival strategy, distribution deals, marketing, […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 23, 2016
