Filmmaker Videos
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“I Don’t Know Where to Put the Camera”: Martin Scorsese on his Toughest Set-Up
Why is Martin Scorsese a great director? Because he’s always wondering where to put the camera. Here’s a priceless and little-viewed French television clip of Martin Scorsese traveling to the airport to present The King of Comedy in Cannes in which the director talks about his toughest set-up. Warning: it’s not from any of his films. Indeed, the clip, in addition to capturing great ’80s NYC street ambiance, is a good illustration of what makes Scorsese Scorsese. After telling the interviewer about all the decisions a director must make when it comes to framing a shot, he answers her question […]
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Happy Holidays to All!
Wishing all of our readers a very happy holiday season!
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Fred Armisen Stars in Alix Lambert’s Superhero Comedy Ambiance Man
Ambiance Man is a new comedy web series from MOCAtv created and directed by filmmaker (and sometime Filmmaker contributor) Alix Lambert and starring, as the eponymous superhero, Portlandia‘s Fred Armisen. The concept, Lambert says, hails from her teens, when she imagined a superhero who would sweat the small stuff. She tells MOCA, “Ambiance Man is a series about a super hero who fixes what we really need fixed in our day-to-day lives. While most super heroes are focused on preventing the end of the world, Ambiance Man is focused on transforming the moments that feel like the end of the […]
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Film Versus Digital: the Canon 7E and 5D
Despite the rise of the digital medium, its constant comparisons to film are not likely to die down any time soon. In this short video for PBS Digital Studios, Shanks FX produces several animated juxtapositions of images captured by a digital Canon 5D versus a Canon 7E film camera. A few of the results may surprise you: digital filters can render filmic qualities — specifically its grains and imperfections — rather accurately. From the other side of the equation, you may be surprised to see just how deep color schemes appear on film relative to high-quality video. Take a look […]
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D.P. Sam Levy on How Blocking Determines Lighting
Blocking is everything to Sam Levy, most recently the cinematographer of Noah Baumbach’s black-and-white feature Frances Ha. Levy talks about his approach to lighting – one that foregrounds blocking above all else. First comes the blocking of the actors in a scene, including their movements and pacing. Next comes the camera blocking which, according to Levy, works best if it’s responding to the setup of the actors. And finally, the lighting emerges as a natural consequence of these two things. As Levy says, “you block, you light, you shoot.” All of Levy’s interview with Craft Truck can be found here.
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Trailer Watch: Mitt
A couple weeks back, Netflix announced that it had acquired another “original” documentary, due for a world premiere at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival: Mitt. Filmmaker Greg Whiteley tracked presidential hopeful Mitt Romney from Christmas 2006 up until the night of his concession speech in November 2012. With unprecedented access, Whiteley was with the Romney family through all of the campaign trail ups and downs, to provide what should be a unique and honest window into the mind of Mitt. The film will be available for viewing on Netflix beginning January 24, 2014.
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12 Years a Slave D.P. Sean Bobbitt on Handheld Cinematography
“You always have to question when a director says, ‘Let’s go handheld.’” At Poland’s Camerimage International Film Festival a few weeks back, d.p. Sean Bobbitt gave an ARRI workshop keynote on the role of handheld cinematography in filmmaking. Far too often, directors, according to Bobbitt, resort to the use of handheld simply because they have no other ideas: “If we do handheld, it will feel kinetic!” and the like. But a knee-jerk instinct is not good enough — Bobbitt believes you should be able to justify every technical decision in the script: “The first and most important consideration is, does […]
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Shia LaBeouf’s Directorial Debut HowardCantour.com Now Online (Updated)
When one thinks of an insightful, sardonic examination into the world of online film criticism, Shia LaBeouf probably isn’t the first name to come to mind. And yet, the actor’s directorial debut, HowardCantour.com, is just that. Starring perennial familiar face Jim Gaffigan, the short film tracks the eponymous character through junkets, brushes with former colleagues, and fallen directors, as he evaluates his profession in this increasingly consumer-driven industry. After stops at Cannes and Aspen Shortsfest, HowardCantour.com is now available online, courtesy of Short of the Week. Update: It appears that LaBeouf may have adapted (perhaps a generous euphemism) HowardCantour.com from Daniel Clowes’ comic Justin M. Damiano, without […]
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Stream Previews of all 17 Videos from Beyoncé’s new “Visual Album”
If you want a quick crash course in music video today — its looks, styles, and assorted tropes — you could do a lot worse than spend seven minutes watching this stream from Beyoncé’s YouTube channel, which begins with the first 30 seconds of every video made for the singer’s surprise, self-titled release. (It just appeared on iTunes last night with no advance publicity.) Living up to her workaholic reputation, Beyoncé has made what look to be lavishly produced, cinematically striking and conceptually varied videos for every song on what she calls her “visual album.” A track list with directors […]
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Kirby Ferguson’s Everything is a Remix: the iPhone
25 New Face Kirby Ferguson extends his popular Everything is a Remix series with this latest entry on the iPhone. I wrote about the series’ original four parts back in 2011. An excerpt: Rather than push a copy-left agenda or hype the latest mash-up artist, Ferguson uses the subject of the remix to discuss the history and nature of creativity. Everything is a Remix deconstructs the idea of originality, exploring the creative but also technological and business memes that recombine from one generation to the next, making us feel that we are encountering something “new” along the way. And it […]
