Directing
Filmmaking - Directing
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Doron Max Hagay on His No-Budget Monica Lewinsky Web Series, Monica
You would think that the filmmaker behind such razor-sharp, atmospheric satires as Erica Wexler is Online and Perfect Thoughts would go for broke with an unsuspecting subject like Monica Lewinsky, but Doron Max Hagay had other plans when it came to designing his amusing new web series, Monica. “From the outset, I was dogged about not representing Monica’s story merely as satire,” says Hagay, who joined forces with actor Lily Marotta to loosely adapt “Monica Takes Manhattan,” the 2001 New York Magazine profile that detailed Lewinsky’s post-Clinton life in the big city. The first two episodes of the six part series are now available online, with subsequent episodes […]
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Reconfiguring on the Fly: David Lowery’s Pete’s Dragon Production Diary
David Lowery doesn’t necessarily dole out directing tips in his production diary for the upcoming Disney remake of Pete’s Dragon, but they do seep through in the details. Currently on day 11 of 70 of the New Zealand-based production, many of Lowery’s entries touch upon the fluidity of the filmmaking process. Most recently, he recounts nailing a precisely planned sequence, only to forfeit his original design for another: Today we were back in the woods at Battle Hill, shooting a sequence that I’d planned out very carefully last summer and had no interest in altering. It was two shots, with a very precise cut point, and […]
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Five Questions with Pervert Park Directors Frida and Lasse Barkfors
First-ime feature filmmaking couple Frida and Lasse Barkfors set their sights on unraveling the taboo yet widespread condition of the sex offender in Pervert Park. At the Florida Justice Transitions trailer park in St. Petersburg, the film’s ostracized subjects work towards societal reintegration through group therapy and unflinching self-reflection. Filmmaker spoke to the Barkfors about building relationships with guarded subjects, objectivity, and how they first came across FJT. Pervert Park has its North American premiere in the World Documentary Competition at the Sundance Film Festival tonight. Filmmaker: As Scandinavians, how did you come across Florida Justice Transitions, and what led […]
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“Someone Always Has to Compromise”: Peter Strickland on The Duke of Burgundy
With The Duke of Burgundy, the cinephilic English director Peter Strickland has made his third — and perhaps best — film to playfully riff on genre conventions. What begins as a bloodless tale of mistress and maid blossoms into a poignant, cyclical exploration of a couple’s inability to compromise on sexual predilections. Best experienced with an uninitiated pair of eyes, The Duke of Burgundy is an increasingly rare film that, for all its reflexive homages and aural intricacies, never forgoes substance for style. Filmmaker spoke to Strickland about scripting tone, genre aesthetics, and the ways in which his film aims to […]
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Five Questions with Mulignans Director Shaka King
Certain to be one of the most intelligent films at Sundance, Shaka King’s Mulignans is four minutes of biting, vicious satire that ably turns the tables on its viewer. A response to the casual and not-so-casual racism of your average gangster film, King and his cohorts commiserate from the stoop of their Bed-Stuy brownstone about the influx of white people in the neighborhood, in thick Italian accents, wild gesticulations and track suits. Even before King’s character is throwing his cigarette butt at a passing white boy or casually calling a white woman the n-word, you sense just how deeply absurd it is that […]
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“I Don’t Know If Camus Would Have Approved”: Five Questions for Far From Men Director David Oelhoffen
David Oelhoffen’s latest film, Far From Men, is based on Albert Camus’ short story “The Guest.” Set during the Algerian War and shot in the manner of a Western, the film features a French and Arabic-speaking Viggo Mortensen as Daru, a schoolteacher in remote Algeria required, against his will, to transport murderous prisoner Mohamed (Reda Kateb) to meet his justice. The two men must confront their own morality and each other against a backdrop of the Atlas Mountains. The powerful film recently played at the Marrakech International Film Festival, near where the film was shot. Mortensen received a career tribute award for the […]
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“This is The Kind of Thing I Want in a Restaurant:” Vanessa McDonnell on John’s of 12th Street
If you’ve ever worked in a restaurant, you may have a sense of the sort of family dynamics the harried environment can rapidly inspire. John’s of 12th Street, a dyed-in-the-wool Italian establishment in the East Village, takes this close-knit enclave to its apotheosis. As rendered in Vanessa McDonnell’s observational documentary of the same name, the restaurant is purely populated by the sort of old school New York characters that can only be regarded as a dying breed. From opening till close, McDonnell captures as many yarns spun over the tables as chicken parms are laid into the oven. In advance of John’s of 12th Street‘s world […]
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Paul Schrader on the Theatrical Experience, Web Series and the Death of the Three Act Drama
Last night at the Made in NY Media Center by IFP, Paul Schrader had a conversation with Marc Schiller, as part of the latter’s Future State of Entertainment Speaker Series. Perhaps more than any other director of his generation, Schrader seems to have embraced the democratic technologies available to today’s filmmakers, between crowdsourcing on The Canyons and his recent intent to make a web series. Indeed, if the protest surrounding his latest film is any indication, he may be done with studios for the foreseeable future. Throughout the two hours, Schrader and Schiller covered a variety of topics, from new technologies to the phasing out of […]
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See No Evil 2 Directors The Soska Sisters on Collaborative Directing
In the upcoming issue of Filmmaker, Esther Robinson writes about directors who work in pairs. Robinson’s focus is on how two directors is better than one when it comes to navigating the development and financial aspects of being a director, and she surveys a number of them on how they structure their work. But then there’s the also the basic question: how do they actually do it? Is everything discussed jointly? Does one talk to the actors and the other direct the camera? Is one more dominant in production and the other in post? In this short clip, Jen and […]
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Five Things Tinder Guys Don’t Know about Being an Independent Filmmaker
In addition to being adorable, overachieving independent filmmakers, we (Caitlin and Penny) are both single gals in various deserts of actual human interaction (Brooklyn and Central NY, respectively.) Thus, we rely on our phones and thumbs, through a mostly-unknown dating application called Tinder, to find “love” (or whatever). Here’s a first-date conversation we both get to have all the time: Tinder Guy: “You’re an INDEPENDENT FILMMAKER??! That is so cool! Is that just like, a nonstop adventure of inspiration and creativity?” Uh, yeah; that’s exactly what it’s like. This post is dedicated to you, Tinder Guy. 1) Most of the […]
