Filmmaker Videos
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Ira Glass and Daniel Sax: on The Gap Between Your Ambitions and Your Work
The gap between your creative ambitions and your creative output — that’s the subject of a new video by Daniel Sax based on 2012 interview by Ira Glass. Sax was actually inspired by another video, one by David Shiyang Liu, which used animated typography to illustrate the same interview. Sax writes that he watched Liu’s video over and over again, letting Glass’s advice about getting through that period where your work just isn’t good enough ease him past his own disappointment in his endeavors. Glass’s words became motivation, and the result is this clever and, yes, inspirational piece of work. […]
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Airborne Footage from the 6K RED Dragon
A few weeks back, I posted a breakdown of the camera packages selected by this year’s Oscar-nominated cinematographers. RED was nowhere to be found. After a long delayed release, the 6K RED Dragon finally hit shelves this summer alongside some pretty nice test footage from Mark Toia. Making another case for ARRI’s underling is some new airborne footage from Freefly, shot with a 11-16 mm lens. In places, the images are so clean, they almost look computer generated.
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“25 New Faces” Katja Blichfeld and Ben Sinclair Launch Latest High Maintenance Episode, “Matilda”
Katja Blichfeld and Ben Sinclair, from 2013 crop of “25 New Faces,” have just debuted the latest episode of their awesome and very funny web series High Maintenance. “Matilda” deviates a little from the usual rules of the show as Sinclair’s unnamed pot dealer is for the first time the central figure in the story, and the action extends beyond its usual environs of New York City. For regular watchers of the show, there are also some welcome return appearances by notable characters from previous episodes; to say more would only be ruining things…
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January 24, 2014 Captured by 100 iPhones Around the World
Jake Scott, filmmaker and son of a man named Ridley, directed this 30th Anniversary spot for Apple, showcasing the cinematographic capabilities of an iPhone 5S. Shot on 100 smartphones around the world, “1.24.14” depicts a day in the life of Mac products and their users, that is equal parts horrifying and awe-inspiring given the Macintosh’s ubiquity. Culled from more than 70 hours of footage, the ad was cut by 21 editors under the guide of regular David Fincher collaborator, Angus Wall.
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From Madrid and Berlin Comes Fever: Nothing Stays
Fever is a recently formed group of photographers and video artists hailing from Berlin and Madrid. As their blog, We Are the Fever, exhibits, their work consists of photo essays and videos, often dealing with youth culture amidst Europe’s economic crisis — two themes present in the group’s new short film, a startling, poetic and beautifully shot evocation of personal and social change titled Nothing Stays. It is produced by the group’s three members — Borja Larrondo, Daniel Eceolaza and Luis Guijarro — and written and directed by Eceolaza. Guijarro shot the short and did color correction. Check it out […]
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“To Hell with Your Honor and Dignity…”: James Schamus’ Rousing WGA Award Speech
Screenwriter and producer James Schamus was honored with the WGA East‘s Evelyn F. Burkey Award, which celebrates those “bringing honor and dignity to writers.” Gratefully accepting the award, Schamus ponders the meaning of “honor” and “dignity” with regards to screenwriters in today’s working environment and delivers a rousing call to arms. Watch above.
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Rest in Peace, Philip Seymour Hoffman
I spent most of yesterday caught in a self-centered malaise upon hearing that one of my favorite actors had passed away. An outpouring of eulogies — each distinct and personal, though unanimously carrying that sorrowful, grateful conclusion — drifted onto the internet, while I reflected in the only way I knew how: by watching his work. It takes more than a few hours or a days to wind your way through Philip Seymour Hoffman’s filmography, as he was not just blessed with great talent, but also, great taste. Nelson Carvajal of Press Play and Fandor has put together a nice […]
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Trailer Watch: Denis Villeneuve’s Enemy Starring Jake Gyllenhaal
The cover story of our current issue, Enemy is Denis Villeneuve’s brooding adaptation of José Saramago’s The Double, his second collaboration with Jake Gyllenhaal following last year’s Prisoners. Today, the busy bees over at A24 debuted a trailer in advance of the film’s March 14th release that also showcases an impressive supporting cast in Isabella Rosselini, Melanie Laurent and recent Cronenberg favorite, Sarah Gadon. The film, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, is another entry in cinema’s long-running fascination with doppelgängers, and apparently, a rather successful one at that. Prior to interviewing Villeneuve for the Winter issue, Brandon Harris raved the film in his […]
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Trailer Watch: Jonathan Glazer’s Under The Skin Starring Scarlett Johansson
If you’ve been wondering where on God’s green earth Jonathan Glazer has been for the last decade, then April should be a very fine month for you. Come the 4th, A24 will release Under The Skin, the Englishman’s long-awaited follow-up to 2004’s Birth. As transparently plotted as that Nicole Kidman-starrer was, Glazer (with significant assistance from Harris Savides) demonstrated a clean handle on its foreboding mood, a trait that has apparently carried over to his latest. In this teaser, cut by Glazer himself, we can barely glimpse Scarlett Johansson’s extraterrestrial stalker for more than a second a piece, but the atmosphere pulses […]
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Trailer Watch: David Michôd’s The Rover
The awesome upstarts at A24 Films made three smart pickups at Sundance (Obvious Child, Laggies and Life After Beth), and have a pretty formidable slate of films upcoming include Denis Villenueve’s Enemy, Steven Knight’s Locke, Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin and, maybe most excitingly, David Michôd’s The Rover. The follow-up to the superlative Animal Kingdom, this outback thriller looks to be a departure from the urban crime drama of the Australian director’s feature debut. (According to A24, the plot is as follows: “10 years following the collapse of society, a man will go to any lengths to take back the one thing that still matters to him.”) In […]
