Filmmaker Videos
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Trailer Watch: Andrew Bujalski’s Results
Still one of my Sundance highlights, Andrew Bujalski’s Results is nearing theaters on May 29. An off-kilter, comedic take on the love triangle, Results concerns two trainers (Cobie Smulders and Guy Pearce) and their wealthy new client (Kevin Corrigan). You can check out my take from Sundance here, and Vadim Rizov will have an interview with Bujalski in the Spring issue.
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Watch: Exclusive Clip from Garrett Bradley’s Below Dreams
As Tribeca gears up for this year’s edition, one of last year’s Viewpoints selections, Garrett Bradley’s Below Dreams, opens in New York and Los Angeles. In the exclusive clip above, Bradley follows one of the characters of her atmospheric tryptic, Jamaine, as he hitches a ride home from a friend. Bradley had the following to say about the conception of Jamaine: In following Jamaine’s story I had hoped to replace the public imagination around African American men with gold teeth, seen on street corners and stoops or in transit with a real presence that could be heard and not just seen. The role that […]
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Watch: Eduardo Williams’ Remarkable Short Could See a Puma
Lincoln Center’s keenly anticipated “Art of the Real” series on boundary-pushing contemporary documentaries kicks off tonight with a shorts program which includes a new short film by Eduardo Williams. To whet your appetite, I highly recommend watching his remarkable 2011 short Could See a Puma, which appears to be his second film. I couldn’t possibly improve on the IMDB synopsis: “The accident leads a group of young boys from the high roofs of their neighborhood, passing through its destruction, to the deepest of the earth.” This is bold, formally adventurous filmmaking that really seems to be something new — if […]
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Trailer Watch: Asghar Farhadi’s About Elly
A couple years ago, there was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about the distribution trials behind Jonathan Levine’s first film, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, which changed hands four times before finally seeing a release seven years following its TIFF premiere. About Elly, Asghar Farhadi’s Silver Bear-winning precursor to A Separation, experienced a similar quagmire when its original distributor, Here Films, went out of business. Thankfully, some six years later, Cinema Guild has untangled the rights issues and is now distributing the film on its original 35mm print. Check out the trailer above.
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Trailer Watch: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
I love this movie and just finished editing a great conversation with director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon and screenwriter Jesse Andrews for the next print issue of Filmmaker. It won Sundance, you probably heard, and, if you’re a Brian Eno fan, well, it’s got a lot of his best songs in it. (And two in the trailer!) For now, I’m not going to say much more than that, but check it out.
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The Sony Action Cam Can Make Movies Never Seen Before (Sponsored Post)
Sony’s Action Cam line provides a competitive alternative to GoPro for filmmakers looking to expand their production resources. To showcase the camera’s capabilities, Sony’s launched a series of films demonstrating how filmmakers can use the Action Cam to make movies “never before seen.” More than 20 will eventually be unveiled on YouTube and Sony’s products website, where you can find more information about the making of each film. Above, check out Charles Young’s Paperports, which documents his work with intricate miniature paper architecture. The FDR-X1000V model offers both 4K and 2K resolution. Some notable technical specs regarding resolution and frame rate: 4K: […]
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Watch: Objects and Objectification in the Films of Walerian Borowcyzk
Currently ongoing at the Film Society of Lincoln Center is the Walerian Borowcyzk series, Obscure Pleasures, and Film Comment Digital Editor Violet Lucca fashioned a nice film essay to supplement the occasion. The above video considers how Borowcyzk’s animation background influenced his treatment of objects, which he often imbues with lifelike or plot-reflecting properties. In the opening film of the series, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne, a phonograph is partially responsible for the third act climax. Lucca also considers the filmmaker’s disregard for shot-reverse-shot construction and his dedication to portraying female sexuality in a series of fairly NSFW clips.
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How Stanley Kubrick Shot Barry Lyndon Using Natural Light
Earlier this week we posted this video with Joe Dunton discussing the lenses used by Stanley Kubrick in his films. (Note: unfortunately, that previous video has been removed by the uploader.) Here’s the next in a Kubrick cinematography playlist: various cinematographers on his use of the BNC camera and Zeiss f/0.7 lenses to shoot Barry Lyndon in natural light. (As a reader below notes, this is an excerpt from Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, which is recommended viewing.) Previously at Filmmaker, Jim Hemphill sat down with three of the film’s actors for a discussion of the making of that […]
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Watch: Chris Landreth’s Subconscious Password
Conde Nast’s short form original content and acquisitions site, The Scene, has just released the fantastic short Subconscious Password, from Academy Award winning animator Chris Landreth. Landreth stars in the Sundance 2014 premiering film as a man who has trouble recalling an acquaintance’s name at a cocktail party, and retreats into an inner mind game show in an attempt to drum up the correct direct address. Though you can’t quite enjoy the 3-D film as it was meant to be seen online, it’s still a rather inventive head trip.
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Watch: Tony Zhou on F For Fake and How to Structure a Film
“‘Therefore’ and ‘but;’ ‘meanwhile’ and ‘back at the ranch.’” Those are two storytelling axioms to keep in mind, suggests Tony Zhou, when structuring both a film and a video essay. Drawing on Orson Welles’ F For Fake, as well as the words of Alfred Hitchcock and Trey Parker, Zhou demonstrates how the juggling of parallel ideas and story lines are essential to any convincing film or argument.
