Authors — Scott Macaulay
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Deadline Approaching for the IFP Narrative and Documentary Labs
The IFP Labs, which offer intensive, year-long mentorship to first-time filmmakers with features in post-production and budgeted less than $1 million, has a March 1 deadline coming up. Still the only Labs focused on post-production, festival strategy, marketing, distribution and DIY strategies, the program is, I think, an invaluable resource and one of the IFP’s best activities. (Full disclosure: IFP publishes Filmmaker, and I was a creator of the IFP Narrative Labs.) In addition to the guidance and advice from Lab Leaders and professional mentors, the Labs also create a tight-knit community of filmmakers who wind up being their own […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 24, 2016 -
Watch: Roger Deakins and Matthew Heineman Talk Shooting the Drug War
One fiction, one documentary, Sicario and Cartel Land were the year’s two most vivid cinematic vocations of violence surrounding the Mexican drug wars. Here, courtesy of VICE, is a great conversation between Sicario D.P. Roger Deakins and Cartel Land director and cinematographer Matthew Heineman. They get deep into their visual ideas for the film as well as the narrative and moral issues those ideas are designed to represent.
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 20, 2016 -
Trailer Watch: Stephen Elliott’s After Adderall
“What’s the difference between a memoir and life?” “I’m an agent, not a philosopher.” That’s writer/director/actor Stephen Elliott quizzing his agent, played by James Urbaniak, in After Adderall, the director’s feature-length, rapid-response to the strange experience of having his memoir turned into a movie starring James Franco. Elliott has assembled a great cast, including Michael C. Hall and Lili Taylor alongside numerous authors playing themselves (Jerry Stahl, Susan Orlean, Michael Cunningham). The film is currently being submitted to film festivals.
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 19, 2016 -
Trailer Watch: The Marijuana Journalism Documentary, Rolling Papers
The SXSW-premiering Rolling Papers, which opens in theaters today from Alchemy, finds a sharp angle to cover the rise of legal weed in the state of Colorado. Even before recreational marijuana use was legalized in Colorado, The Denver Post launched a department devoted to covering the pot beat, “The Cannabist.” It’s by focusing on editor Ricardo Baca and his team of journalists that producer/director Mitch Dickman tells a story that’s about changing cultural mores, the struggles of print journalism, and getting high in the Mile High State.
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 19, 2016 -
Trailer Watch: Tilda Swinton’s The Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of John Berger
Is there any contemporary filmmaker — or any artist invested in the creation of images — who hasn’t been influenced, at least on some level, by the British writer John Berger? His Ways of Seeing, a semiotics-tinged analysis of imagery ranging from European oil painting to 20th century advertising, is a seductive and accessible introduction to critical theory, feminist film criticism and Marxist cultural commentary. Premiering at the Berlin Film Festival is the anthology film, The Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of John Berger. Conceived of by Swinton and producer and literary critic Colin McCabe, the film captures the 89-year-old […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 15, 2016 -
Behind-the-Scenes Blue Velvet Footage in Blue Velvet Revisited
Last August we posted the trailer for the reissue of Peter Bratz’s Blue Velvet Revisited, a feature-length, Super 8 documentary on the making of David Lynch’s classic with a new score by Tuxedomoon and Cult with No Name. The footage in that trailer consisted on square, black-and-white video. Now, not one but two new teasers have been posted online with restored, color-corrected footage that reveals the full range of the film, including strange, behind-the-scenes moments, interview footage with Lynch, and the director in a nicely starched shirt buttoned up to the collar. For more on Blue Velvet Revisited, check out […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 14, 2016 -
Watch: Sam Scoggins’ J.G. Ballard Short, The Unlimited Dream Company
Having just posted the trailer for Ben Wheatley’s upcoming adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s classic dystopian novel, High-Rise, now’s a good time to check out this considerably more obscure — yet, for fans of the British writer, equally rewarding — film. With a hat tip to Dangerous Minds, check out Sam Scoggins’ rather Ballardian author’s portrait, which mixes interview footage with both imagery and storytelling strategies drawn from Ballard’s work.
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 11, 2016 -
Music Video: Beyonce, “Formation”
“I might be a black Bill Gates in the making….” There’s a lot going on in Formation, the new single and music video surprised-released by Beyonce this afternoon. Hurricane Katrina, Black Lives Matter, the antebellum-era American South. Oh, yeah, and Red Lobster in one perversely profane lyric. Plus, the last shot is a fantastic riff on what is a pretty familiar indie-film trope — the actress submerging her face in a bathtub. I’ve been searching around and can’t find a director credit but will add if I come across it. You can download the song for free here.
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 6, 2016 -
“Flop”: The Conclusion of Short Film Winner Jim Cummings’ Sundance Video Diary
“You won a trophy in a bowling alley — get it together!” Thunder Road short film award-winning director Jim Cummings deals with sudden success in this final installment of his video diary series from the Sundance Film Festival. There are parties and drugs, bad behavior in the snow, nods to Kanye and Birdman, and much more. Check it out above.
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 5, 2016 -
The Birth of a Nation, Weiner Top 2016 Sundance Film Festival Awards
The Birth of a Nation, Nate Parker’s transporting historical drama about Nat Turner’s 1831 slave rebellion, won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize as well as the Audience Award last night at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival closing awards ceremony. Josh Kriegman and Elye Sternberg’s Weiner, a documentary about beleaguered NYC mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, scored the U.S. Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary. With its record-breaking, $17.5 million sale to Fox Searchlight, The Birth of a Nation had dominated conversation at the festival earlier in the week. Said Turner at the film’s Q&A, “I made this film for one reason […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 31, 2016
