Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Film Comment Appoints New Editor, Film Society of Lincoln Center Creates New Editorial Director Position
Big news from our friends over at the Film Society of Lincoln Center with two new appointments. Having served as interim editor of Film Comment since Gavin Smith’s departure, Nicolas Rapold will assume the editorial mantle full-time. Michael Koresky — perhaps best-known as the co-founder of Reverse Shot, which he’ll continue to edit — will be joining him as Editorial Director, a position that’s new to the organization. This position calls for overseeing all manner of content both within the magazine and as part of FSLC’s overall strategy. First up on the docket: the launch of a Film Comment app. For slightly more, […]
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Nine Years in Nine Minutes: The Guardian’s 6×9 VR Look at Solitary Confinement
One of the most powerful pieces at Tribeca’s Storyscapes program this year was a nine-minute evocation of the experience of solitary confinement produced by The Guardian. Now available for Google Cardboard or simply viewed as a web video on The Guardian‘s site, 6×9, directed by Lindsay Poulton and Francesca Panetta, is both a masterful exploration of VR’s promise as well as a penetrating look at the corrosive psychological effects of solitary confinement. Overused in the American prison system — to say nothing of being simply inhumane — solitary confinement becomes, as 6×9 succinctly demonstrates, a form of torture. On an […]
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Watch: Which Movies Have the Greatest Cinematography?
Over at Fandor Keyframe, Scout Tafoya muses about what makes a great cinematographer. “None of us seems to quite have the same definition of great photography,” he intones. “It seems that none of us agree what a cinematographer is supposed to do, what their relationship is with the image, the camera itself.” He asked dozens of critics to select ten films that feature their version of ideal photography in order to see if there was any common ground among them. He then created a video essay (above) analyzing the films that received the most votes, including The Tree of Life, The […]
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The Refugee Crisis: How to Help With a $9,000 Budget, a Canon 5-D Mark III and One Woman’s Incredible Story
Hamsa, a short film on the Syrian refugee crisis by first-time documentary filmmakers Caroline Spearpoint and Miriam Thom, is the focus of an event next Monday, May 2 at the IFP’s Made in New York Media Center. Hamsa: A Documentary and Educational Platform features the two filmmakers along with Benjamin Lowe (US Senior Campaigner at Change.Org), Rebecca Heller (Director at the International Refugee Assistance Project) and will focus on not only the making of the film but the collaboration with IRAP and Change.org as well as the use of film in social impact campaigns. In the guest post below, Spearpoint […]
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How Who the F*@% is Frank Zappa Broke Crowdfunding Records
Raising over $1.1 million on Kickstarter, Who the F*@% is Frank Zappa (working title) recently shattered the crowdfunding record for a documentary project, previously held by the Bill Nye film. Directed by Alex Winter (Deep Web), the film is an authorized exploration of the iconic musician’s life and work. Of course, the project benefited from Zappa’s name recognition and hardcore fan base. But that alone isn’t enough to carry a crowdfunding campaign. In order to drive engagement, the filmmakers extended the campaign far beyond Kickstarter itself with coordinated benefit screening events of Zappa’s concert film Roxy: The Movie around the world, additional “Add On Rewards” including […]
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Watch: Weiner, Set to Kick Off Rooftop Films Summer 2016 Series
New York’s Rooftop Films will kick off its 20th annual summer series on May 18 with a screening of Weiner, the winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s 2016 US documentary grand jury prize. Directed by Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg, Weiner will open in theaters May 20 and hit VOD on May 26 via Sundance Selects. As the trailer (above) shows, the documentary follows the now infamous former New York congressman on the 2013 mayoral campaign trail following a sexting scandal. In addition to Weiner, Rooftop Films will present the documentaries Don Juan and Life, Animated, as well as narrative titles Hunt for the Wilderpeople and White Girl. […]
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Five Questions for 195 Lewis Director Chanelle Aponte Pearson
Winner of the euphoria Calvin Klein-sponsored “Live the Dream” grant at the 2015 IFP Gotham Awards, filmmaker Chanelle Aponte Pearson is the director of the upcoming web series, 195 Lewis, as well as the head of operations at the Brooklyn-based production company MVMT. In other words, she’s a consummate juggler, working on the business side of film while evolving her own film and web practice. With an excerpt of 195 Lewis, Pearson’s Brooklyn-set, queer polyamorous love story, having screened at this year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam, we decided to check in with Pearson for a status update on the larger […]
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TCM and Criterion Partner on FilmStruck, Streaming Service for Cinephiles
If Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and Fandor aren’t satisfying your cinematic cravings, you’re in luck. Turner Classic Movies has partnered with Criterion Collection on FilmStruck, a new subscription-based streaming service which will feature hundreds of contemporary and classic arthouse, indie, foreign and cult films from both independent and Hollywood studios. It will also be the exclusive streaming home for Criterion Collection, which, until now, has been exclusively available at Hulu and Fandor. FilmStruck’s library will feature a deep roster of films from such independent distributors as Janus Films, Flicker Alley, Icarus, Kino, Milestone and Zeitgeist, along with movies from Hollywood’s major movie studios including […]
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Tribeca 2016: Exploring the Virtual Arcade
Tribeca is still a young festival — its fifteenth edition just wrapped last week — and though originally traditional films constituted its entire focus, soon transmedia, interactive work, and then virtual reality gained enough prominence that by 2016 they were as integral a part of the proceedings as the film screenings. This year more VR was on view than ever before at Storyscapes, the Interactive Playground, and the Virtual Arcade that together ran the length of the entire festival. By and large, the breadth and quality of the projects testify to the burgeoning craft of VR artists as the medium continues to […]
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Kodak and Kickstarter Launch Program for Indie Filmmakers to Shoot on Film
Despite outliers such as Alex Ross Perry and Todd Haynes, the general consensus among independent filmmakers is that shooting on film is too expensive to be feasible. Over the past year, Kodak has been working to get the word out that shooting on film is a possibility – even for low-budget indies. Along with Kickstarter, the Eastman Kodak Company today announced a new initiative to support independent filmmakers who want to shoot on film. The program is open to cinematographers launching a Kickstarter campaign in order to bring their vision to life using 35mm or 16mm film. Four directors with upcoming Kickstarter campaigns […]
