Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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I’m Directing My First Documentary Short… Who Cares?
So I’m making my first short documentary. Tentatively titled Sole Doctor, it’s an observational-style film about George, an African-American cobbler who, after keeping shop for 50 years in Portland, Oregon, plans to retire and pass the business on to his son, Joshua. As I’ve chronicled in previous journals for Filmmaker, as a first-time filmmaker, I knew enough to seek advice from the pros before proceeding, and then I made sure to hire a good DP and sound mixer. But, of course, as much as I planned ahead, I still hit some bumps along the road — like our first shoot, when we planned to film […]
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10 Lessons on Filmmaking from Viggo Mortensen
In his latest film, Captain Fantastic, Viggo Mortensen plays Ben, a man intent on raising his children on his own terms in the wild forests of the Pacific Northwest. When he learns of his wife’s sudden death, he must uproot his family from the life they are accustomed to and try to find their own path back in civilization. The film had an incredibly successful festival run after its Sundance premiere, picking up top awards in Cannes, Deauville and Karlovy Vary. And recently, the film picked up the Audience Award at the Rome Film Fest, where Mortensen and director Matt […]
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History in Under 90 Seconds: Critiquing the Barry and Jackie Trailers
Stephen Garrett’s “The Art of First Impressions” is one of Filmmaker‘s most widely read articles, an insightful and incisive guide to making a great movie trailer. We’re happy to have Garrett, who is not only a critic but also the founder of the trailer and marketing house Jump Cut, back writing for Filmmaker, beginning with a regular series on the creative direction of today’s most noteworthy trailers. This first installment begins with Garrett examining teasers for two films about political figures acquired by their distributors out of the Fall festivals: Barry and Jackie. — SM Despite a punishing election season […]
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Gary Sinise’s Of Mice and Men: An Appreciation
One of the great filmmaking misconceptions familiar to anyone who’s ever read a screenwriting manual (or spent time with low-level Hollywood development executives) is the notion that movies are external and books are internal — that the advantage that literature has over cinema is that it can tell us what people are thinking. This canard that movies aren’t good at conveying characters’ thoughts has endured in spite of how easily disproven it is. Even a casual study of Bergman or Ozu, or more recently Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight, confirms the exact opposite truth: that depicting characters’ interior lives is one of the […]
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Watch: A Scorsese Fast Dolly Zoom-In Supercut
From faces to guns to cocaine to pasta sauce, the fast dolly zoom-in is one of Martin Scorsese’s go-to expressive camera moves. Here, Jorge Luengo Ruiz compiles four-minutes of them in what is both great mid-day cinematic eye candy as well as something of a critique. Ruiz writes: Martin Scorsese’s penchant for a specific kind of zoom, one where he runs the camera right up to the face of his subject, falls somewhere in between the subtle and the obnoxious. Seduced as we are by the style and panache of Scorsese’s oeuvre, we let this habit of his pass us […]
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Tom Hanks on Producing vs. Acting: Producers Don’t Get a Free Haircut
Most people know Tom Hanks as a two-time Oscar winning actor. Some would recognize him as the sometimes-director behind works including That Thing You Do!, and others know him simply as his often-nickname “America’s Dad.” But the beloved actor may not be as well known as one of Hollywood’s top producers, with 50 producing credits to his name from Band of Brothers to My Big Fat Greek Wedding to Olive Kitteridge. The actor, who recently picked up a lifetime achievement award at the Rome Film Fest, takes a hands-on role as producer in his own films and those of others, beyond just attaching his […]
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New Horror Film Festival Will Debut at The Shining Hotel
Festival co-directors Michael Lerman and Landon Zakheim chose Halloween to announce The Overlook Film Festival, a new genre festival that will open April 27 at Oregon’s Timberline Lodge. The historic hotel at the base of Mt. Hood was used for the exterior setting of the Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. The four-day festival will feature a weekend-long immersive game from Bottleneck Immersive and an original live version of the radio play Tales From Beyond the Pale by Glass Eye Pix. Live programming will also include musical performances, panel presentations, live podcasts, escape room challenges, magic shows, trivia night, games, […]
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Watch: “The Shining: Quietly Going Insane Together”
Why is The Shining so disturbing? In this video from “Lessons from the Screenplay,” Kubrick’s horror classic is examined from both a script perspective and, more broadly, why exactly the film is so creepy.
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Chicago Newcity Names the 2016 Film 50
I’m a couple of weeks late posting about the latest edition of the Chicago Newcity Film 50 because, well, it’s a dense read — think Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces times two, made all the more impressive because one person, Ray Pride (also a Filmmaker Contributing Editor) pens all the profiles. A list of 50 people who comprise a composite snapshot of the Windy City’s community of media creators (this year, Pride’s preamble states, the list devoted itself to artists as opposed to producers and programmers), the Chicago Film 50 is both an insightful read and a great resource. Writes Pride, […]
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Watch The Way It Should Be, Snapchat Doc about Queer Women of Color, Today Only
Appearing today only on this “Now This” section of Snapchat is The Way it Should Be, a short (naturally) doc about love and friendship between queer women of color by Chanelle Aponte Pearson and Terence Nance. The second entry in POV Snapchat Films, The Way It Should Be can be watched in less than five minutes, and it’s perfectly conceived for Snapchat’s vertical video format. Swiping left takes you to an image page with a chapter heading graphic. Swiping up takes you to a minute or so of video content that ranges from talking head interviews to short, music-video style […]
