Directing
Filmmaking - Directing
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Wizard Mode Filmmakers on Why They Went the Digital Distribution Route
Directed by Salazar Film (Nathan Drillot and Jeff Petry), the documentary Wizard Mode relates the story of Robert Gagno, a young man with autism who is one of the world’s highest ranking pinball players. Wizard Mode tracks Robert’s rise on the international pinball circuit and his efforts to forge an independent life for himself. The film, Vimeo’s first-ever original feature, had its world premiere at Hot Docs earlier this year and is available now on Vimeo, VOD and iTunes. Filmmaker recently asked the film’s directors Nathan Drillot and Jeff Petry about working with a subject who has autism, getting the rights to The Who’s iconic “Pinball Wizard,” opting […]
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Watch: Jim Jarmusch on Cinema and His Influences
Director Jim Jarmusch sat down with New York Film Festival Director Kent Jones for this year’s On Cinema master class, to discuss some of his favorite films and directors, including Samuel Fuller, Abbas Kiarostami, Aki Kaurismäki, Robert Wise, Nicholas Ray, and others. You can watch the entire one-hour conversation in the video above. Jarmusch had two films at the 54th New York Film Festival: Main Slate selection Paterson starring Adam Driver, and Gimme Danger, a documentary on Iggy Pop and the Stooges, which will open at the Film Society of Lincoln Center on October 28.
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Kelly Reichardt on Shooting Certain Women on 16mm, the Ugliness of the Day, and Making the Space Tell the Story
In the more than two decades since her stunning debut film River of Grass premiered at Sundance in 1994, Kelly Reichardt has managed to carve out a unique niche for herself in the independent film world. Her distinctive and uncompromising body of work includes Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy, Meek’s Cutoff, Night Moves, and her latest, Certain Women, which premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. Written and directed by Reichardt and based on the short stories of Maile Meloy, Certain Women stars Laura Dern, Kristen Stewart, Michelle Williams, James Le Gros, Jared Harris, Lily Gladstone and René Auberjonois. Shot by frequent collaborator, DP […]
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Making Blue Jay in Black and White
It’s been a momentous year for cinematographer Alex Lehmann, who successfully made the transition to director/DP with his first two features. His documentary feature Asperger’s Are Us, about the first comedy troupe consisting of openly autistic people, premiered earlier this year at SXSW, where it was bought by Netflix. Blue Jay, Lehmann’s narrative feature debut, recently premiered at TIFF and will hit select theaters on October 7 before heading to digital on October 11 and Netflix later this year. Mark Duplass and Jay Duplass executive produced both films. Starring Mark Duplass (based on his screenplay) and Sarah Paulson as two former high school sweethearts who reconnect […]
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Five Questions for Miss Stevens Writer/Director Julia Hart
We’ve seen our fair share of films about teacher-student relationships, but they tend to fall into either the titillating or inspirational categories. Miss Stevens is neither. It’s a quiet drama which is powerful in its subtlety. The plot itself is understated, but the execution is surprisingly compelling. The set-up involves Rachel Stevens (Lily Rabe), a lonely high school teacher who reluctantly chaperones three teens – including the troubled and charismatic Billy (Timothee Chalamet) – to a drama competition. In her directorial debut, Julia Hart, who co-wrote the film with her husband Jordan Horowitz, exhibits an aptitude for working with actors. Rabe won the Best Actress […]
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My First Film Shoot: A Lesson in Documentary Filmmaking and Flexibility
If you need any motivation to begin production on your first-ever documentary, here’s a tip: tell thousands of people you’re making a documentary. That’s what I did when I shared the news on Filmmaker and Facebook that I was going to make my first film, a short documentary, tentatively titled Sole Doctor. Of course, I loved the enthusiastic response. But hearing, “Can’t wait to see it!” from more than 100 people sure ratchets up the pressure to deliver. With my subject nailed down and a DP and sound mixer onboard, it was time to begin production. For the first shooting day, […]
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Expert Tips for First-Time Documentary Filmmakers (Like Myself)
Months ago, I got the crazy idea to write, produce and direct my first documentary. I wasn’t completely unrealistic — I knew enough to start small with a short, micro-budgetfilm. I also knew I could count on a supportive network of documentary filmmakers — including pros such as Doug Block, Marshall Curry, Laura Nix, Tracy Droz Tragos, Robert Greene, and others — to help guide me through the process. Later in this piece, I’ll share some of their invaluable wisdom. But first, here’s a bit about my film and my process so far. I had been on the lookout for a subject that […]
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In Defense of Street Photography in an iPhone Age
Last Halloween (my birthday, as it happens), I loaded up my Bolex to shoot some 16mm black-and-white images of a children’s costume parade in my Brooklyn neighborhood. I was thinking of Helen Levitt’s 1948 masterpiece, In the Street. Levitt (and her co-cinematographers James Agee and Janis Loeb) used a small camera to surreptitiously record images (mostly of children) in Spanish Harlem. The film is a poetic time capsule — observational vignettes that become more than the sum of their parts. The Bolex looks pretty big these days compared to digital cameras, so I wasn’t hiding anything from anybody. As I […]
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Daniels’ Possibilia Explores the Possibilities of Interactivity
Billed as an “interactive love story set in the multiverse,” Possibilia, a short film from the dynamic writing/directing duo known as Daniels, tells the story of a couple (Alex Karpovsky and Zoe Jarman) on the verge of a break-up with 16 potential outcomes that are left to the viewer. The project, which screened at both Sundance, Tribeca, and other festivals back in 2014, now gets an online release over at Eko (previously Interlude), the interactive video creation platform. Like Daniels’ recent feature Swiss Army Man, Possibilia relies on humor to subvert the genre and push the conventions of the medium. Filmmaker recently […]
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Les Cowboys Writer/Director Thomas Bidegain on Contemporary Westerns, His Journey to Directing, and the Importance of the “B-Book”
In theaters now from Cohen Media, Les Cowboys is the directorial debut of acclaimed French screenwriter Thomas Bidegain, best known in recent years for his collaborations with French director Jacques Audiard. (He has co-scripted all of Audiard’s films following The Beat My Heart Skipped.) In an age when the value of the cinematic medium is being challenged, Bidegain has made a haunting and bold first feature that is both intimate as well as epic in scope. It’s a film steeped in the history of cinema, drawing both visual and narrative inspiration from classic American westerns. At the same time, Les […]
