Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Redford Center Grants Program Backs Features with Environmental Bent
Last month, The Redford Center announced the launch of Redford Center Grants, a grant program aimed at supporting the production of films that seek to raise global awareness of environmental issues. Funded by The New York Community Trust, The Redford Center Grants program will support filmmakers with feature-length projects that are in early stages of development and that are focused on driving awareness, education and action on environmental topics. Though there is no specification that the films must be non-fiction, on the list of Films We Love, The Redford Center highlights documentaries such as Super Size Me, Gasland, Virunga, The Cove, and […]
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25 New Faces of Film 2016
Click here to read this year’s 25 New Faces of Film.
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The Fine Print: How To Understand and Negotiate a Film Distribution Contract
There are many new distribution options for the independent producer. The old media includes theatrical, broadcast/cable, home video; new media’s alphabet soup includes TVOD, SVOD, AVOD, EST, PPV, streaming and nontraditional theatrical. As new distribution channels develop, new distribution companies emerge. But not all distributors are effective in all mediums and markets. Just as you would not expect Netflix or Vimeo to release your work theatrically (Netflix’s recent self-originated productions to the contrary), you would not expect Gathr and Tugg to broadcast or cablecast your work. As a consequence of all these new distribution channels and the splitting up of […]
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Because Breaking Up is Hard to Do
As a cinematographer, I’m always looking for the perfect marriage: the director I can lock eyes with to communicate volumes without uttering a word. Someone who knows how to use my work to its best potential, who can challenge my ideas about filmmaking and push me to reach places I didn’t think I could — and then keep going. In my dreams, it never starts and ends with one film. It’s a lifelong journey to seek out something greater. All my heroes have these sorts of relationships: the Coens and Deakins, Allen and Willis, Iñárritu and Prieto (maybe now Lubezki?!). When meeting with directors, […]
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It’s Not Always About the Money
There’s been a great deal of talk recently in our film community about the concept of sustainability. There hasn’t, however, been a great deal of precision. Take the word itself — “sustainable.” It’s most often defined by its absence. But by the time we ask, “What is a sustainable career?” the answer comes back, and it’s usually simply: “Not this.” We’ve adopted the idea of sustainability from the environmental movement, where it describes the quest to make an ecosystem stable and long-lasting. Sustainability’s myriad definitions range from the utopian (“all systems in dynamic balance”) to the terse, harsh pragmatism of its Latin root, […]
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The Big Transition: How to Break into TV Writing, Part One
Maybe you’ve had some success writing features. You’ve sold a spec, landed an assignment, made the Black List or wrote and directed your own indie feature. Maybe you’re a playwright, or you’ve got a web series, or you’ve made a few shorts, or even written a few good features. Or maybe you’re simply an emerging writer working toward that first sale or produced credit. No matter — in today’s film business, you can be any one of the above and still be thinking about one thing: moving into television. If you’re thinking about trying a TV staffing job, or even […]
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Landlord Blues: Ira Sachs on Little Men
There are little men, and then there are big forces — economic tides, societal shifts, structural change. The beautiful strength of Ira Sachs’s recent work — his mid-career surge after the five-year gap that followed his larger-budget, mini-major film, Married Life — is that Sachs’s characters are such complicated, soulful men and women clearly impacted (but not defined) by the larger issues swirling around them. In his lightly autobiographical 2012 film Keep the Lights On, Sachs essayed the romantic life of a documentary filmmaker in a relationship with a drug-addicted lawyer, set against the backdrop of turn-of-the-millennium New York gay […]
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Trailer Watch: Natalie Portman’s A Tale of Love and Darkness
Natalie Portman optioned the rights to Amos Oz’s bestselling memoir A Tale of Love and Darkness more than eight years ago. The Israeli-born actress reportedly met with the writer before adapting the screenplay herself. Now the film, written, directed, and starring Portman, gets a trailer (above). Shot by veteran Polish DP Slawomir Idzia, the Hebrew-language film tells the story of a troubled young mother, Fania Oz (Portman), as she raises young Amos (Amir Tessler) during the turbulent early days of the state of Israel. Focus World will release the film, which premiered at Cannes last year, in theaters on August […]
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Points North Institute Announces New Shortform Editing Residency to Take Place During Camden International Film Festival
As the photo above indicates, Camden, Maine in the fall is a pretty idyllic place to get one’s head out of an urban edit room and gain perspective on one’s project. Apropos of that, the newly formed Points North Institute — a year-round organization that will produce the Camden International Film Festival as well as other events in Maine — has made its first major announcement: a new shortform editing residency. The week-long residency takes place during the Camden International Film Festival (September 15 – 18) and brings four selected filmmakers and/or journalists to Maine to work on their doc […]
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LG’s 34UC98 Ultrawide Monitor Fits All Post-Production Needs (Sponsored Post)
Part of LG’s family of ultrawide monitors, the 34UC98 model is a fast, reliable fit for all aspects of post-production. For editors, the 21:9 display screen (34′ diagonally) provides plenty of organizational room, eliminating the need for multiple monitors. Keeping track of everything becomes easier with the monitor’s LG Screen Split options, which allows control over resizing and displaying windows, as well as offering 14 different options for picture-in-picture display.An sRGB display of over 99% provides accurate color display for the post-production process. That process can begin quickly, since two Thunderbolt input/output ports allow movement of about 20 gegabits per second […]
