Filmmaker Videos
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Watch: iPhone-Shot Film about Skateboard Sean Malto
Ghost Digital Cinema has just released Malto, a short about pro skateboarder Sean Malto and the year he’s spent recovering from a massive injury in order to skate again. Directed by Ty Evans, the short was shot entirely on an iPhone using a slew of pro gear, including cinema lenses and a $9.99 app, Filmic Pro. Particularly interesting for those into iPhone cinematography is the short behind-the-scenes video, posted below, that shows the lenses, gimbal, use of the iPhone screen as viewfinder and more.
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Watch: “Alexander Payne: The Science of Failure”
At the beginning of this examination of Alexander Payne’s work, Daley Nixon cites an old writer’s proverb that a screenplay consists of creating a character and throwing rocks at them; in Payne’s case, Nixon says, he lobs hand grenades. Yes, Payne’s worldview can be grim, but this video argues that failure is a catalyst for ultimately positive self-examination in his films. Includes digressions on the perils of voice-over, complete with a cameo from Frank Darabont.
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Watch: Lytro Cinema, the Camera that Could Kill Two-Camera 3D Camera Rigs
Next week at NAB, a potentially very important new camera is being debuted. The Lytro Cinema camera has capabilities that could potentially eliminate the need for two-camera 3D rigs. Over at Studio Daily, Bryant Frazer has a good explanation of the camera’s features, technical specifications and potential implications. (Note: it’s going to be a very expensive piece of equipment, at least at first.) As he sets it up: Lytro is debuting a light-field cinema camera that captures volumetric data about a scene rather than a single image from one fixed perspective. That means it captures information about the direction light is traveling, […]
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Trailer Watch: LoveTrue, by Alma Har’el
Very high on my list of anticipated works at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival is LoveTrue, Alma Har’el’s follow-up to her stunning documentary, Bombay Beach. For her new hybrid doc, Har’el — a Filmmaker 25 New Face — has followed three very different couples whose behaviors challenge our expectations of what constitutes a love story. She’s also employed actors, who play her real-life subjects past and future selves. Har’el’s work is always provocative, soulful, and rich with stunning images and gorgeous music. Last year, I watched a short work-in-progress cut of this project, and interviewed Har’el. Here she is answering […]
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Trailer Watch: Amanda Marsalis’s Echo Park
Opening April 15 at the IFC Center and L.A.’s Independent Downtown is Echo Park, the directorial debut of celebrity photographer Amanda Marsalis. A relationship drama starring Mamie Gummer (The Good Wife, Cake) and Anthony Okungbawa (Mother of George), the film is based on a number of incidents occurring in Okungbawa’s life. The actor is a resident of the titular neighborhood — a diverse, pedestrian-friendly swatch of L.A. that forms a microcosm of sorts for this film’s characters-in-transition. The script was written by AFI Grad Catalina Aguilar Mastretta. Check out the trailer above. Echo Park is released by ARRAY Releasing.
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Steve McQueen’s Latest Film? A (NSFW) Burberry Ad Shot in 70mm
Director Steve McQueen hasn’t made another feature since winning an Academy Award for Best Picture for Twelve Years a Slave in 2014. He had been plugging away on the new HBO series Codes of Conduct, which the pay cable network described as Six Degrees of Separation meets Shame. But despite a cast including Paul Dano, Helena Bonham Carter and Rebecca Hall, HBO scrapped the project after initially giving it a six-episode order. But McQueen has kept busy with short film projects including All Day, a 9-minute video installation featuring Kanye West. Of course, he’s no stranger to the short film format, having made some 20 short films since he was an […]
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Watch: Álvaro, from UnionDocs Living Los Sures Project
Inspired by Diego Echeverria’s 1984 documentary, Los Sures, Living Los Sures is an expansive documentary produced over five years by 60 artists at Brooklyn’s UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art. Premiering online today here at Filmmaker is Álvaro, directed by Alexandra Lazarowich, Elizabeth Dealaune Warren, Daniel J Wilson & Chloe Zimmerman, a short doc about the daily ritual of longtime Southside, Brooklyn resident Álvaro Brandon. Timed to the restoration and Metrograph screening of Echeverria’s cinema verite work, about the largely Puerto Rican and Dominican community of the Southside of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Living Los Sures consists of 40 short films, the interactive […]
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Watch: Stanley Kubrick, Across the Color Spectrum
In 2014 we posted Rishi Kaneria’s supercut on Stanley Kubrick’s love of the color red. Now, inspired by that video, Marc Anthony Figueras has created his own video, this time surveying the director’s use of color all across the color spectrum. Films referenced: 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut. And, for those who’d like to simply skip to their favorite hue, here are the chapter markings: Red- 0:07 Blue- 1:30 Yellow- 2:12 Purple- 2:42 Pink- 2:51 Orange- 2:59 Green- 3:15 Black & White- 3:45
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Watch: Inside the Rooms of No Home Movie, Take 2
Late last week, we published a video essay from Kevin B. Lee, chief video essayist at Fandor, about the spaces in Chantal Akerman’s final documentary, No Home Movie. Lee estimated that about 70% of the film took place within the walls of the filmmaker’s dying mother Natalia’s apartment. To re-orient himself in Natalia’s apartment, Lee reorganized the footage by room. Initially, he edited the video to music, using Schubert’s Impromptu D. 899 Op. 90 No. 3, not coincidentally the same music used in Michael Haneke’s Amour, which also follows an elderly woman’s demise. But after receiving some complaints, including from the distributors of the film, Lee reassessed […]
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Watch: Projecting The Hateful Eight at the Music Box Theatre
When the 70mm roadshow version of Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight rolled out in December, the experience was sold on the aesthetic superiority – the scope, the clarity, the subconscious effect of flickering frames of film. At a time when Screening Room may soon allow filmgoers to watch the latest wide releases on their couch, the roadshow offered an unreplicable spectacle. But for me the joy of road-tripping to Chicago to catch The Hateful Eight at the Music Box Theatre during its opening week had nothing to do with film gauge size or grain structure. The bliss came from something that is even more […]
