Filmmaker Videos
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Crowdfunding and Audience Myths on Reinvent Hollywood
In late May, Ted Hope kicked off the Reinvent Hollywood series, which employs the opinions and experiences of several familiar faces in independent film to address the industry’s pitfalls. From what I’ve seen in the three Google Hangouts thus far, Hope and his conspirators do a great job of summarizing and highlighting areas for improvement, but speak in more general terms when it comes to solutions. The latest 90-minute roundtable (and recap), which centered on audiences, aims to dismantle some of the more widely held beliefs that have resulted from the proliferation of crowdfunding. Says Sheri Candler of the muddled impetus […]
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“25 New Face” Ian Clark Streams MMXIII and Talks its Online Distribution
Last February, Filmmaker exclusively streamed for several days the latest feature from 25 New Face Ian Clark, MMXIII. For what is an experimental film, streaming here and, in the following weeks, on other sites was also an experiment in distribution. As he now reposts MMXIII online for viewing by all, Clark submitted the below comments when we asked him for a post mortem on his internet distribution endeavor. Watch the film above and visit Clark at his website here. I think its fair to say that this has been the most fulfilling project I’ve completed to date, both in terms […]
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Watch: David Cronenberg’s NSFW New Short The Nest
“David Cronenberg — The Exhibition” launched in Toronto last year and is currently on display at Amsterdam’s EYE Film Institute until September 14. Cronenberg directed The Next for the show, and from now until the closing date you can watch it online. It’s NSFW, unless your workplace doesn’t object to topless women, so perhaps bookmark this suggestively creepy one-shot short for later viewing. In a dirty cleaning supplies closet, a surgeon (psychiatrist? lunatic kidnapper? janitor?) with a camera strapped to his head questions a young woman convinced that her left breast contains an insect colony and needs to be amputated. […]
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Short Film: Broken Tail Light, by Paola Mendoza
A minor traffic stop is a life-changing experience in Paola Mendoza’s short film, Broken Tail Light which stars Jamie-Lynn Sigler and, as her daughter, Heaven King. After viewing, Mendoza, one of Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces in 2009, points us towards Immigrant Heritage Month.
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Trailer Watch: Tsai Ming-liang’s Stray Dogs
Venice Grand Jury Prize winner and all around critical favorite Stray Dogs will be making its way into American theaters sometime this year, courtesy of Cinema Guild. Here’s an early look at the film, via a Unifrance trailer, which centers on a homeless family in Taipei. There’s little plot to tell of, as director Tsai Ming-liang prefers to relate his characters’ circumstance through series of unbroken, often excruciating takes: a scene in which the father, ashamed at his inability to provide, role plays caregiver and destroyer with a head of cabbage is particularly striking. As a Cinema-Scope review noted, Ming-liang’s austerity can […]
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Watch: Projection Mapping and Creating the “Beam of Light” Illusion from Metropolis
Shanks FX’s latest instructional video centers on the in-camera effect of projection mapping. Beginning with the “beam of light ” effect, created by cinematographer and VFX artist Eugen Schüfftan (Metropolis, Eyes Without a Face), Joey Shanks demonstrates how with a camera, a one way mirror, a projector and a computer at the controls, you can create the illusion of a three-dimensional conic light. Shanks also explains how to render a light tunnel on an one-dimensional black board. Good low-budget techniques to keep in your backpocket for sci-fi, dream sequences and the like.
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Trailer Watch: Ira Sachs’ Love Is Strange
Despite being an out gay couple, Ben and George (John Lithgow and Alfred Molina) nevertheless find themselves shouldering nasty ramifications after they decide to tie the knot in Ira Sachs’ Love Is Strange. Premiering to near universal raves at Sundance, Love Is Strange charts the fallout from this seemingly basic right, with Ben and George jobless and couchsurfing amongst a close-knit group of friends, including Marisa Tomei and Cheyenne Jackson. Sony Pictures Classics will release the film on August 22.
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Trailer Watch: Hal Hartley’s My America
“What is my America?” That was the question asked 50 playwrights by Centerstage, which celebrated its 50th anniversary last year. Their answers were filmed by Hal Hartley, who is exclusively debuting the resulting feature documentary, My America, on Fandor for its SVOD premiere beginning July 4. From Centerstage: Filmed by Possible Films, led by award-winning director Hal Hartley, these 50 monologues by writers including Anna Deavere Smith, Neil LaBute, Christopher Durang, and Lynn Nottage explore our particular American moment—the ideas and people that make the country what it is today. The responses, ranging from the political to the personal, form […]
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Trailer Watch: Justin Simien’s Dear White People
Dear White People was unsurprisingly divisive at Sundance, where some viewers questioned what they saw as its muddled provocations. Sight unseen, however, this just released trailer makes the film’s aims and strategies rather apparent. Directed by Justin Simien, the satire follows the experiences of four Black students at a predominately White university. With only a few shorts to his name, Simien’s brilliant concept trailer — whose opening is quoted almost verbatim in the above trailer — went viral, sparking a widespread debate and healthy Indiegogo campaign. It’s an exemplary instance of pre-production marketing, and Simien was able to follow through on its promise. Dear White People will […]
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The Hands of Robert Bresson
Filmmakers, how much attention do you pay to a single body part, to a gesture? This elegantly beautiful supercut on “the tactile world of Robert Bresson” by Kogonada for Criterion shows the great French director’s notoriously precise skill is applied even at the slightest hand gesture. There are no faces in this video yet the drama of these scenes is palpable.
