Filmmaker Videos
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Watch: Paul Thomas Anderson’s Extreme Close-Ups
Here’s a thorough, succinct look at the rather particular use of extreme close-ups in the films of Paul Thomas Anderson. Note how they are almost never routine inserts or signifiers — there’s always a motion to the shot, either within the frame or as the camera pushes in toward its subject. Check it out above.
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Music Video: Lana Del Rey, “High by the Beach,” Directed by Jake Nava
What was that Godard (or Griffith) line, “All you need to make a movie is a girl and…”? Lana Del Rey’s latest music video, “High by the Beach,” has just dropped, and it’s got a kind of Zabriskie Point-era Antonioni meets Andy Sidaris thing going on, with lovely handheld camerawork, a trendily minimal beachside house location (“no” production design is the new production design) and a blast of a finish.
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Trailer Watch: Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight
After a much ballyhooed pre-production script leak, The Hateful Eight is set to hit theaters Christmas Day from The Weinstein Company. Here is the first official trailer for Quentin Taratino’s eighth feature film, starring regulars Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Madsen and Tim Roth, alongside Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Bruce Dern and Demian Bichir as a motley crew of snowbound bounty hunters in post-War Wyoming.
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Watch: How to Read a Call Sheet
This succinct, no nonsense tutorial video from RocketJump Film School breaks down the various components of a call sheet, showing how to read each section and understand various acronyms. Best tip for those making a call sheet: make sure to include the address of the hospital nearest to your set, and make sure it has an ER. You never know.
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Pay Tribute to Bankrupt Columbia House with The Target Shoots First
Given the news that Columbia House — the mail-order CD club that famously promised eight CDs for a penny — is filing for bankruptcy, there’s no better time to (re)watch Chris Wilcha’s The Target Shoots First, his 2000 documentary about his time working there in the ’90s. What once played as a blackly funny portrait of trying to stay sane while working in a cynical corporate culture is now oddly nostalgic, given the relatively relaxed working environment. For more context, it’s well worth reading this AV Club piece by Annie Zaleski, in which she interviews four former Columbia House employees (including Wilcha) about […]
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Watch: A New P.T. Anderson Music Video for Joanna Newsom
Paul Thomas Anderson’s music video for Joanna Newsom’s new single is very much in the loose handheld mode of Inherent Vice. Newsom wanders Manhattan while reeling off some typically complicated lyrics and the camera follows in her wake. Her new album, Divers, is out on October 23.
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Watch: “The Chase,” A Supercut of Great Chase Scenes From Bullitt to Fury Road
Taking its earliest footage from 1968’s Bullitt, generally considered the origin point for the modern car chase, and its most recent footage from this summer’s Mad Max: Fury Road, Michael Mirasol’s very fine supercut breaks down chase sequences into their common constituent parts. Starting with many POV shots of the road racing before a speeding car, “The Chase” builds to a steady compare-and-contrast stream of head-on collisions, heavily-braked 360s and impossible vehicular leaps.
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Watch: An Impressive Tribute to Hayao Miyazaki
Animator “dono” is responsible for this impressive super-montage of Hayao Miyazaki’s work. Recreating Miyazaki’s settings with the animation software Blender, dono then places the 2D characters into this 3D amplification of their original worlds. It’s technically adroit and, if you’re a fan, quite lovely.
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Kickstart David Felix Sutcliffe and Lyric R. Cabral’s (T)ERROR
A shocking exposé on the FBI’s counterterrorism efforts, David Felix Sutcliffe and Lyric R. Cabral’s (T)ERROR is in danger of not seeing an official release due exorbitant legal and insurance fees. In profiling a longtime informant, Saeed “Shariff” Torres, Sutcliffe and Cabral demonstrate enough evidence to suggest that the FBI might invent terrorists just as much as it prevents them. The film is an essential conversation piece, and one that deserve to reach the widest audience as possible, so please consider donating to the Kickstarter to fund the theatrical release.
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Trailer Watch: Jake Mahaffy’s Free in Deed
Jake Mahaffy appeared on Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces list in 2005 following his Tarkovsky-esque black-and-white (shot on a hand cranked camera, no less) tale of American collapse, War. His very different 2008 feature Wellness won the Grand Prize at SXSW and now, seven years later, Mahaffy is back with the Venice-premiering Free in Deed. Produced by Mike Ryan, it’s easily the film I’m anticipating most on the Fall festival circuit. From the film’s Facebook page: Set in the distinctive world of storefront churches and based on actual events, Free in Deed depicts one man’s attempts to perform a miracle. When […]
