Filmmaker Videos
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How Not to Make a Kickstarter Video
As some of you may know by now, I am running a Kickstarter campaign for my new film Bomb It 2, which is the follow up to my global graffiti and street art documentary Bomb It. I have consulted on a number of campaigns, but never run one of my own, and I wanted to experience the complete process for myself. I am now personally more obsessed with checking for new backers when I wake up (and every 10 minutes) but what I found to be one of the hardest things to do is to make my own crowdfunding appeal […]
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Jessica Oreck on her new Web Series, This Working Man
Less than three months since she premiered her documentary, Aatsinki: The Story of Arctic Cowboys, at the Tribeca Film Festival, Jessica Oreck is both on the road and back with new work. This Working Man is a web project combining video portraiture, travel, and crowdsourced curation. From the project’s website: This Working Man is a series of short portraits of men at work. It is about practiced motion, kinetic movement, bodies, and forms. It is about a particular type of man: exceedingly capable, strong, confident, and diligent. The project is a search for humble masculinity and an unapologetic admittance of […]
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Trailer Watch: 12 Years a Slave
Set in the years leading up to the Civil War, and based on Solomon Northup’s 1853 autobiographical memoir, Steven McQueen’s new 12 Years a Slave tells the story of a free New York State black man kidnapped and travelled down South, where he is sold into slavery. The film chronicles his attempts to stay alive and maintain his spirit as he dreams of the day when he can be reunited with his family. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Northup, Michael Fassbender a harsh slave owner, and Brad Pitt a Canadian abolotionist. The film was shot on 35mm by Sean Bobbitt and opens […]
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Trailer Watch: Ectotherms
Ectotherms is the feature debut of Miami-based filmmaker Monia Peña, and it mixes fiction, documentary, the Miami landscape and black metal. Peña was influenced, she writes, by Cuba’s “Imperfect Cinema and many derivations of realism,” by her collaborators as well as by the people she met along the way. The suitably mysterious trailer is above, and here’s the synopsis: ECTOTHERMS: organisms that rely on external heat sources When teenager Chelsey finds her grandmother dead, she knows life without the old Cuban woman who raised her will never be the same. So she skips school with her brother Cassidy and his […]
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Dustin Guy Defa’s Declaration of War
I was on brief hiatus after finishing Filmmaker‘s Summer issue on July 3, so I missed Dustin Defa’s inspired new short Declaration of War when it debuted on VICE’s website this Independence Day. More than a week on, though, it’s still timely and relevant — and no doubt will continue to be for a long time after. Below, from a short interview on VICE, Defa talks about the context surrounding his seven-minute film: The edit highlights tons of playful claps, private looks, and secret conversations happening among the dignitaries during what’s supposed to be a serious public address. What’s your […]
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Trailer Watch: Spike Lee’s Old Boy
So here’s the red band trailer for Spike Lee’s remake of Old Boy, which gives a good insight into the film without being that pushing its red-band status to the extreme. As a fan of Park Chan-wook’s original, I’m not sure this movie is for me — Josh Brolin is a less compelling lead, and as far as I can tell there are few or no discernible deviations from the plot of the 2003 movie. (And that plummy English villain?!) But I’m willing to be convinced otherwise.
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Asif Kapadia and Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) Document Guantanamo Force-feeding Procedure
Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) submits himself to the force feeding procedure hunger-striking Guantanamo Bay prisoners are currently undergoing twice a day in this painful short video by Senna director Asif Kapadia. As Ben Ferguson describes in The Guardian, the video was directed using the testimony of a hunger striker, Samir Mokbel, provided by the prisoners’ rights organization Reprieve: There was no rehearsal: after all, no acting would be required. He swapped his black leather jacket, jeans and designer shoes for an orange jumpsuit. In an instant, he was no longer Mos Def – rapper and Hollywood star – but a […]
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David Fincher Shoots Rooney Mara in Luscious Black and White
David Fincher directed this beautiful Calvin Klein commercial starring his Girl with a Dragon Tattoo muse, Rooney Mara. Karen O. provides Mara’s interior soundtrack as the actress moves from subway to concert hall. At Movie City News, Ray Pride gives the spot a loving meditation: The glimmering of inconsequence… Angles on cafe to compare with Girl With The Dragon Tattoo; Rooney Mara walking same cadence as cyclist in zebra crossing; sugar crystals in coffee instead of Godardian cream; cuttingly crisp and creased white blouse under fitted form of lightest black leather blouson of highest odor; taffeta dress knee-length as girl-kick […]
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Leaked Teaser Suggests Fascinating M.I.A. Documentary
Apparently frustrated by Interscope’s tardiness in continuing the production of a documentary on M.I.A. he was directing, Steve Loveridge staged a guerrilla action this weekend by uploading a five-minute teaser to YouTube, embedding it on his Tumblr. “Reblog the shit out of this and maybe they’ll wake up,” he wrote. The action did not go over well. Interscope pulled down the clip, and a Roc Nation exec sent Loveridge one of those entertainment industry “I’m really pissed off but, hey, bro, s’all cool” emails, noting that the upload “screws with” the label’s marketing and PR efforts while assuring Loveridge that […]
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Alix Lambert and Sam Chou Launch Crime: The Animated Series at MoCA
Published in 2008, Alix Lambert’s Crime is one of the most fascinating books on the subject, bringing together in one gorgeously-produced volume interviews with various artists and dramatists who have chronicled crime as well as actual criminals themselves. But the book is just one element of Lambert’s practice surrounding this topic. Her Crime has taken the form of gallery shows, theater pieces and now, animated films. This week Lambert and animator Sam Chou will launch Crime: The Animated Series at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. From MoCA: MOCATV presents a screening of short animated episodes from our […]
