Filmmaker Videos
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Watch: Quentin Tarantino Had the Last Laugh
Laughter doesn’t immediately come to mind when you think of Quentin Tarantino’s body of work. But as video essayist Candice Drouet reveals in her latest video essay Tarantino Had The Last Laugh (above), Tarantino’s characters laugh more than you may recall….and the effect is quite menacing. The four-minute supercut features every instance a Quentin Tarantino character or the director himself laughs in one his films. The result is less hilarious than insidious as anyone familiar with the works referenced will understand the context of these laughs. More often than not, these characters are laughing at another character’s suffering or before or after they have inflicted suffering.
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Watch: Coen Brothers Documentary on VICE Guide to Film
George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, John Turturro, and composer Carter Burwell are among the talking heads who analyze the filmmaking brothers’ oeuvre in VICE Guide to Film‘s recent episode on the Coen Brothers (above). The segment, which amounts to an extended video essay, breaks down scenes from some of their most memorable films and delves into their collaboration process. Discussing the directing duo, Turturro says, “It’s like a two-headed monster.” Previous episodes of the show have focused on the work of Kelly Reichardt, Gus Van Sant, John Carpenter, Todd Haynes, and other directors.
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Watch: “Indy Vinyl: Close Ups, Needle Drops, Aerial Shots – Records in US Independent Cinema 1987 – 2015”
This video from Ian Garwood compiles various vinyl depictions in US independent cinema from 1987 until 2015. A longer 14-minute version provides a more analytical approach of the subject.
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Watch: Bill Plympton’s Hitler’s Folly for Free
Academy Award-nominated animator Bill Plympton has released his latest feature film, Hitler’s Folly, for free on the Internet. Running 67 minutes, the controversial mockumentary, which mixes live-action with bits of animation, re-imagines Adolf Hitler as a successful animator and artist. “This is a very very provocative and kind of wacky look at the movie industry and also Hitler’s career if he became a cartoonist,” explains Plympton in the introduction to the film (which you can watch above). Plympton wrote, directed, designed and animated the film, which stars Nate Steinwachs (Goddess of Time) and Dana Ashbrook (Twin Peaks). Reviewers have not been kind to the film, with […]
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Trailer Watch: Werner Herzog’s Lo and Behold
He’s taken on cave paintings, Siberian fur trappers, and an ill-fated bear enthusiast. Now, with his latest film, Werner Herzog tackles the internet. “The explosion of information technology on the internet has led to some of its greatest glories,” intones Werner Herzog in his signature Werner Herzog voiceover in the trailer for Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World (above). The film, which premiered earlier this year at The Sundance Film Festival, examines the past, present and evolving future of the internet by interviewing cyberspace pioneers and prophets such as PayPal and Tesla co-founder Elon Musk, Internet protocol inventor Bob Kahn, […]
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Watch: Brian De Palma Shot by Shot
Metrograph begins their month-long Brian De Palma retrospective today, showing 28 of his films until June 30. TIFF is set to start their own slightly smaller De Palma retrospective, Split/Screen: The Cinema of Brian De Palma, on June 18, running until September 3. Now that his work is once again coming to the big screen, watch this shot-by-shot scene breakdown of the Union Station scene in The Untouchables, created by Antonios Papantoniou. Each shot is annotated with lens choice, running time, camera position et al.
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Crime and Punishment on the L.A. Freeways: John Cassavetes Drives
Here’s a trippy short video found via the Vintage Los Angeles Facebook page, an excerpt from the 1968 French documentary, Cineaste de notre temps (1968). Shot three years earlier, it’s just John Cassavetes driving home as a French interviewer peppers him with questions he mostly nonchalantly (and most likely post-synced) answers. Not enough people in L.A. — “living by appointment,” he says. He also announces a project: Crime and Punishment as a musical. The Beach Boys play on the soundtrack.
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Watch: Spike Lee’s ESPN Documentary 2 Fists Up, On Protests at University of Missouri
The Undefeated, ESPN’s new platform focusing on the intersection of race and sports, premiered the new season of the TV miniseries Spike Lee’s Lil’ Joints with the release of 2 Fists Up, directed by Lee himself. The film takes a look at the protests on the campus of the University of Missouri last November, which included a boycott by the school’s football players. This documentary emphasizes the women organizers behind the protests rather than the football team, a welcome surprise from an ESPN production. 2 Fists Up initially premiered on the university campus in early April with the announcement that […]
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Mentorless Returns from Cannes with Advice on Pitching Projects at a Major Festival
One of the best filmmaking video blogs going right now is at the Mentorless site, where filmmaker Nathalie Sejean is posting weekly about her goal of making her first feature film, In Five Years. Both Sejean and her producer, Muge Ozen, attended the Producers Network this month and returned with enough info to fill up two entries. Among the advice offered here is what online filmmakers should make sure to do to get accredited to the Cannes market, when to submit — and not submit — scripts to buyers, and how to consider whether you should even try to tackle […]
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Watch: How to Shoot Super 8 in the 21st Century
This video from DSLRguide covers the very rudimentary basics of shooting Super 8 — over- vs. under-exposure, things to look for when buying a camera, etc. Test footage is included.
