Wes Anderson’s sensibility has, I suppose, always been somewhat “European,” so it’s not a big stretch for him to be extending his storytelling realm to include one of the great cities of Central Europe in The Grand Budapest Hotel. And he certainly seems to be having fun with this star-studded, 1920s-era romp, which may be the most visually lavish and designed film of his career to date. On the surface, the film looks like a companion piece to Jiri Menzel’s I Served the King of England, which tackles similar subject matter but with a comic bite and political engagement that […]
Gordon Willis, the legendary cinematographer who shot The Godfather and Annie Hall, reveals in this clip from Craft Truck‘s cinematographer series how to be a valuable crew member and the norm of the relationship between the director and d.p. Watch the full interview here.
25 New Face Jillian Mayer has long been attuned to the impact of technology on identity and personal expression. Here, she offers a helpful tutorial to those worried about biometric tracking, face recognition and the profusion of surveillance cameras on our streets.
Director Joe Connor was recently given ten minutes to make a short film with actor Daniel Radcliffe. The 26-year-old director and the star of the current Kill Your Darlings met for just a few moments, quickly tossed around some ideas and settled on the theme of fear. The resulting short, Wait, is a nicely pitched essay about stage fright that will resonate with anyone who has felt their heart pace as they prepare for public speaking.
The New York-based Thinkmodo has specialized in the best form of advertising on the internet: viral content that is shared freely by viewers and placed by editors — like this one — on websites free of charge. “Thinkmodo mashes-up viral fun with marketing function to create effective viral video campaigns for brands,” they write on their site. “Our unique strategy generates tremendous online engagement and valuable earned media coverage worldwide.” Case in point is their latest, advertising Kim Peirce’s upcoming Carrie remake, which I learned about from the Twitter feed of U.K. mentalist Derren Brown, who declared it “magnificent!” (The […]
From a new YouTube account, BanksyNY, graffiti’s greatest talent has posted a new video, entitled “Rebel rocket attack.” We’re deep into production on our Fall issue of Filmmaker, so I’ll post this with a minimum of comment and say only this: Watch.
This is sponsored editorial content from Honda. Though we still refer to the cinematic medium as “film,” both in production and exhibition the digital form has taken over. Theaters everywhere are having to undergo digital conversion, which is a manageable undertaking for the large chains but often a tough, uphill financial struggle for small, independent screens. Drive-in theaters, so much a part of the historic fabric of American moviewatching, are having a particularly hard time making the switch, so Honda is embarking on a campaign to help a huge number of these great venues to continue screening movies. As seen […]
In the latest of our clips from Craft Truck‘s excellent interviews with cinematographers, Dean Cundey talks about the difference between how a particular scene in Back to the Future was shot in the mid-1980s and how it would be done now, neatly encapsulating the advances in film technology in the past three decades You can watch the full interview with Cundey here.
Days of Gray, the Iceland-set debut picture from New York production company Bicephaly Pictures, will have its world premiere October 4 at, appropriately, the Reykjavik International Film Festival. The film will screen at the historic Gamla Bio theater with the seven-piece orchestral band Hjaltalin performing their original score. The filmmakers have blogged for Filmmaker about the production of the film, and now they are debuting here their first trailer, posted above. Here’s the synopsis from the film’s Vimeo page: It is a world without language. A world where one is raised to respect the rules. Every possession is strictly utilitarian. […]
Two Dollar Radio, the Columbus, OH-based independent literary house is launching a microbudget film division, and the first project out of the gate is The Removals, written by author, critic and frequent Filmmaker contributor Nicholas Rombes. (His Blue Velvet Project remains a high water mark of this site.) Directing will be Grace Krilanovich, author of acclaimed teen vampire novel, The Orange Eats Creeps, which made a guest appearance recently in Rombes’ essay on Only God Forgives. “The story is part-thriller, part-nightmarish examination of the widening gap between originality and technology, told with remarkable precision,” writes Two Dollar Radio on its […]