Filmmaker Videos
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Trailer Watch: David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows
David Robert Mitchell’s genre juggernaut, It Follows, continues its year on the festival circuit as a just-announced selection of Sundance’s Midnight program. On the heels of said announcement, we now have our first official look at a (French) teaser. The horror film concerns a teenaged girl in a Detroit suburb who is stalked by a sexually transmitted phantom, but as these things are, the less you know going into it, the better.
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Miranda July and Carrie Brownstein Promise a Somebody App That “Works”
Regarding her eccentrically beautiful messaging app Somebody, Miranda July has posted this video with Carrie Brownstein about its v.2. “Over the next few months we will be making Somebody 2.0,” she writes. “It’s just like Somebody 1.0 but it works.” If you don’t know about Somebody, it’s an iOS app (Android coming, says July in this video) that allows you to send a communication to someone via a nearby third party, who delivers that message in person. Still confused? Well, Somebody was the subject of a new podcast, Reply All — the second from podcasting startup Gimlet Media. Watch above […]
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David Ehrlich’s 25 Best Films of 2014 Supercut
At Little White Lies David Ehrlich returns with his excellent annual supercut of his own 25 Best Films list. He writes, “As was also the case with last year’s video, the video kicks off with a little intro that’s intended to set the stage, and then launches into the countdown a couple of minutes later. All of the featured music comes from the films of 2014, and a full track list is waiting for you at the end. As always, this was both a blast to cut together and also just an unspeakably catastrophic waste of time. So… I hope […]
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Watch: :: kogonada Compiles Criterion Designs
Criterion Collection recently put out the coffee table book to end all coffee table books, Criterion Designs. A compilation of the illustrations, sketches and concept art behind the label’s impeccable covers and graphics, the book presents an inside look at the highly elaborate design process. Our recent 25 New Face :: kogonada has created a nice bumper for Designs, with seamless cuts between the films and their illustrations, from Charlie Chaplin to Wes Anderson. Check it out above.
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Watch: How to Highlight Depth of Field
As a two dimensional medium, film employs a handful of techniques to convey a greater depth of field than what exists in a given frame. In this handy video, cinematographer Matthew Rosen breaks down his five favorite ways to highlight depth, through lighting, focus, perspective, parallax, and occlusion. The dolly effect, which Rosen argues is perhaps most effective in relating depth of field to an audience, is in fact a combination of parallax and occlusion.
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Trailer Watch: Noah Baumbach’s While We’re Young
“I’ve become so disturbed by younger people!” “What? Younger people?” The trailer for Noah Baumbach’s forthcoming Frances Ha follow-up While We’re Young is undoubtedly the only teaser for a Ben Stiller vehicle to frame itself with quotes from Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder. Older couple Stiller and Naomi Watts meet younger partners Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried and ends up wandering around Bushwick; musings on aging and maturity follow, but it’s funny anyway. It’s also very nice to see Charles Grodin back in action, in his first feature since 2006’s The Ex. The film opens March 27.
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Trailer Watch: a Young Jane Fonda in Jane, from Drew Associates
Here’s an extraordinary clip from Jane, a documentary directed by Drew Associates about the young Jane Fonda preparing for her first Broadway role. My favorite line: “Andreas [the director] has coached Jane before. They’re friends, and he dates her often.” From the press release: JANE, directed by Drew Associates, captures a rare and oft forgotten piece of film and theater history. A young Jane Fonda prepares for her tumultuous starring role on Broadway in “The Fun Couple.” The Drew Associates filmmakers track Fonda’s every move during the production as she strives to legitimize herself as an actress and remove herself […]
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Short Film: Ferguson NYC Protests, Scored by Dev Hynes
In the days following the Grand Jury decision to not indict Darren Wilson in the murder of Michael Brown, protests and marches were held throughout the country in solidarity with the people of Ferguson. In New York, crowds wound their way through middle and lower Manhattan, across the bridges, and into Brooklyn. This short film from the music video director Aaron Stewart-Ahn, set to a piano tune from Dev Hynes, captures an evening of protests, with some beautiful, rankling imagery: white people pushing against the crowds as they stare into his camera; bus passengers with their hands held high, mirroring […]
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Watch: Amy Schumer Introduces Tilda Swinton at the Gotham Independent Film Awards
“Why am I even allowed to say her name,” wondered comic Amy Schumer when starting a tribute to the actress at last night’s Gotham Independent Film Awards. The story she has to tell begins with a part Schumer wrote for her forthcoming film Trainwreck — that of her boss, simply described in the script as “a goddess, like Tilda Swinton waiting at a baggage claim.” Schumer then tells of the first time she saw Swinton (Vanilla Sky, of all things) and pays tribute to Swinton’s singular screen presence, noting that the only thing cooler than watching her act is hanging […]
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The Sound of Helicopters in Apocalypse Now
A film’s first shot, its first image, is one that’s obsessed over by many directors. But how many put as much care into its first sound? Francis Ford Coppola did, along with sound designer Walter Murch, when constructing the opening of Apocalypse Now. The famous helicopter sounds actually enter over black — they are the first input of any kind an audience member receives. And, of course, those weren’t just any helicopter sounds. In the video above — a section of a documentary commissioned for the Paramount 2006 home video release and made by Zoetrope’s former head of post, Kim […]
