Filmmaker Videos
-
The One-Cam: Under the Skin’s Customized CCD Camera
Eventually we’ll stop posting about Under The Skin but today is not that day. Last month, I ran a featurette from A24 about the film’s guerrilla style execution. The production rigged Johansson’s vehicle with eight hidden cameras, recording her improvised interactions with any given passerby in real time and with maximum coverage. Now, we have yet another featurette that gets into the specifications of said cameras, called “One-Cams,” which were developed especially for the occasion. For the van sequences, the VFX studio One of Us rigged a CCD camera (about the size of a GoPro) with anamorphic super 16 lenses. Though the rest of the […]
-
“It’s Never All In The Script:” Dennis Hopper on Nicholas Ray and Rebel Without a Cause
“I’m the best damn filmmaker in the world who has never made one entirely good, entirely satisfactory film,” so said Nicholas Ray, according to his friend Dennis Hopper. In a bit for Turner Classic Movies in 1997, Hopper reflected on Ray’s work and their relationship, which began during his debut role as Goon in the filmmaker’s iconic Rebel Without a Cause. At the time, Hopper remembers thinking “that James Dean was directing [the] film, he had so much input in his character and lines, even deciding how a scene would be shot,” later to realize that Ray “gave Dean the freedom he needed…[he] […]
-
Trailer Watch: Richard Linklater’s Boyhood
Trailer cutting is an art in itself and more often than not the results undersell or miss-sell the very package they promote. So goes this slightly corny bumper for Richard Linklater’s masterpiece, Boyhood, though as I recall from my knee jerk reaction to the Coldplay-scored opening sequence, any glimpse of heavy handedness in the film is not worth fretting over. It’s simply one of the most profound viewing experiences I’ve ever had and the less you know going into it, the better. That one of the more holistic family portraits in film has earned an R from the MPAA is an egregious error. IFC Films […]
-
“What I Regret Most in My Life Are Failures of Kindness”: George Saunders, Animated
Author George Saunders’ 2013 Syracuse University commencement address dealt with the subject of kindness. Much in the same way that David Foster Wallace’s This is Water was turned into both an animated short as well as a tasteful stocking stuffer, so too Saunders’ rueful musings. Congratulations, by the Way: Some Thoughts on Kindness is the name of the 64-page book, and an excerpt has been nicely animated by the folks at Serious Lunch.
-
Trailer Watch: When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism
Corneliu Porumboiu’s fifth film The Second Game just screened as part of Lincoln Center’s Art of the Real series, but his fourth, When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism, is still nearing theaters. While several of Porumboiu’s contemporaries of New Romanian Cinema train their eye on domestic disturbances — of both the absurdist and pragmatic variety — Metabolism pulls back the curtain on a filmmaker’s mid-shoot inner turmoil. Plagued by some sort of imaginary condition (the absurd), he falls into an affair with his lead actress (the pragmatic) and suffers a crisis of doubt. Meticulously crafted, each scene is comprised of a single long take. […]
-
Trailer Watch: David Michôd’s The Rover
I was a big fan of David Michôd’s familial crime drama Animal Kingdom, and not just because I saw it on an airplane. If his follow-up The Rover looks to try on a rather generic premise — a hero on the hunt for what’s rightfully his — that’s hopefully not much cause for concern: Animal Kingdom found its strength not in plot, but in its characterization and pacing. Reteaming with the always reliable Guy Pierce, Michôd trades in the rest of his local ensemble for the dubious star wattage of Robert Pattinson, performing an indiscernible accent as a discarded gang member. Premiering in […]
-
Trailer Watch: Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida
Recent Grand Jury Prize recipient at the Sarasota Film Festival and a FIPRESCI winner in Toronto, Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida tells the story of a would-be nun who haphazardly uncovers her Jewish background. Set in 1960s Poland, the discovery leads the eponymous Ida through a tear in her family’s history, stretching as far back as the Nazi occupation. Music Box Films releases the formally and emotionally stunning Ida on May 2.
-
Trailer Watch: Obvious Child
Ahead of its June 6 release, A24 has released the trailer to yet another potential hitmaker in their arsenal: Gillian Robespierre’s Obvious Child. I interviewed Robespierre about the film for our upcoming Spring issue, which upends the traditional romantic comedy route of boy meets girl by wedging an abortion into the mix. Jenny Slate stars as Donna Stern, a comedian whose pathological on-stage oversharing is momentarily stunted when she finds herself pregnant by a one night stand. Surrounded by a winsome ensemble — including Gaby Hoffman and Gabe Liedman — Donna juggles her misstep and budding relationship with Max (Jake Lacy) […]
-
“This is a Generic Brand Video”: Satire or How-To?
At McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, writer Kendra Eash published a poem, “This is a Generic Brand Video,” satirizing (or maybe just noticing?) the pleasant, fuzzy, vaguely neoliberal language of brand videos. Language like this: In today’s high speed environment, Stop motion footage of a city at night With cars turning quickly Makes you think about doing things efficiently And time passing. Lest you think we’re a faceless entity, Look at all these attractive people. Here’s some of them talking and laughing And close-ups of hands passing canned goods to each other In a setting that evokes community service. Now, the folks […]
-
Trailer Watch: Laundry Day
In my “How to Find a Producer” article in our Fall, 2013 edition, I interviewed New Orleans filmmaker Randy Mack about his efforts to develop local producers, a challenge that arose when he embarked on his third feature, Laundry Day. More recently, Mack speculated here on the perfect independent film discovery app. Now there’s a trailer for Laundry Day, posted above. From the film’s website: A fight in a 24-hour bar-laundromat among four New Orleans barflies —a musician, a bartender, a street performer, & a drug dealer — is revisited from each perspective, revealing an intricate web of service industry […]
