Filmmaker Videos
-
Watch: “Behind The Lens: Fujinon MK 18-55mm Zoom”
As part of a series of lens tests, Matt Porwoll delves into the Fujinon MK 18-55mm Zoom. As he writes as part of a thorough technical breakdown: The Fuji MK 18-55 is an extremely lightweight lens, but solidly built. Weighing in at just over 2 lbs, it balances well with lighter-weight cameras like the Sony FS7 and FS5. It will also be a nice addition to the Sony a7SII, giving cinema style operation to a camera that otherwise would have difficulty supporting such a lens style.
-
Watch: All of David Lynch’s Bizarre and Beautiful TV Commercials
With his new Twin Peaks: The Return scrambling our minds every Sunday, we at Filmmaker are experiencing a collective case of the feels for David Lynch these days. Giving us our fix until Episode Six streams this weekend is this video of Lynch’s television commercials compiled by Jeff Keeling. As with many directors, Lynch directed many of his best short TV spots for overseas brands, so look for work here like a Twin Peaks tie-in spot for Japan’s Georgia coffee that I, at least, have never seen before. A complete list of commercials included is below. (I venture to say […]
-
Watch: Steve James on How and Why Nashville Influenced his Filmmaking
Here’s a great video from Criterion in which documentary filmmaker Steve James (The Keeper, Stevie, Hoop Dreams) discusses how he was influenced by Robert Altman’s Nashville. He begins by noting that your most influential films are the ones you see when you’re young and falling in love with cinema, and he then goes on to say that he wasn’t interested in documentary filmmaking when he encountered Altman’s work. But there were aspects of Nashville that impressed him — including, yes, the zooms! — as well as notions of structure that wound up rippling into films like The Interruptors.
-
Watch: “David Fincher — Invisible Details”
David Fincher is famously a technical wizard, but most of his special effects use is designed not to be perceived. Kristian Williams dives into some of his most inconspicuous applications of VFX.
-
Watch: Shaka King Erases “Racial Glaucoma” in Short Film LaZercism
Newlyweeds writer/director Shaka King, who last appeared on the site with his excellent Sundance short Mulligans, is back with another imaginatively executed, of-the-moment short. LaZercism is his riff on “racial glauccoma,” a disease affecting white people that prevents them from seeing the contributions of — or just seeing at all — people of color. The comedy short, which stars Keith Stanfield (Short Term 12, Atlanta) and Robert Longstreet (I Don’t Feel at Home in this World Anymore), proposes an easy, outpatient procedure to correct the affliction.
-
Watch: “Behind the Lens: Zeiss LWZ.3 21-100mm Zoom”
A few weeks ago, AbelCine launched a video series hosted by DP Matt Porwoll that’ll examine 11 common lenses used in documentary filmmaking. First up: the Zeiss LWZ.3 21-100mm Zoom, whose sharpness, chromatic aberration and other properties are exhaustively broken down. To read through the tech info, click here.
-
Watch: “Film Meets Art III”
The latest in a trilogy of video essays from Vugar Efendi, this one speaks for itself: painting on the left, clip from a movie modeled on it on the right.
-
Trailer Watch: Josh and Benny Safdie’s Good Time, Starring Robert Pattinson and Benny Safdie
One of my most anticipated films of the summer is Josh and Benny Safdie’s Good Time, which premieres in a few days in the Main Competition of the Cannes Film Festival. The first trailer has just dropped from A24, and it shows Robert Pattinson as a bank robber trying to get his accomplice — his brother, played by Benny Safdie — sprung from Rikers Island. Jennifer Jason Leigh appears as well as Buddy Duress, who co-starred in the Safdies’ previous Heaven Knows What. It’s a heartbreaker of a trailer scored to an original song by Oneohtrix Point Never and Iggy […]
-
Trailer Watch: Twin Peaks, Now With Actual Shots from the Show
Whereas previous Twin Peaks trailers have featured pretty much nothing in the way of images from the cult show’s return, this teaser actually drops us into the look of the new season. It’s creepily tantalizing.
-
Trailer Watch: Woodshock, Written and Directed by Kate Mulleavy and Laura Mulleavy
There was a mini-boomlet a few years ago in cinematic fashion films, and Kate Mulleavy and Laura Mulleavy, the two sisters who are the designers for the fashion label Rodarte, were behind several of the best. Working with the director Todd Cole, the films were stunningly beautiful, fitfully mysterious and emotionally ambiguous. Now, the sisters have directed their own first film, out this September from A24. The trailer, posted above, is an absolute knockout — my favorite trailer posted in the last two days. Here’s the press release copy: The exquisite feature film debut of visionary fashion designers Kate and […]
