Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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The Birth of a Nation, Weiner Top 2016 Sundance Film Festival Awards
The Birth of a Nation, Nate Parker’s transporting historical drama about Nat Turner’s 1831 slave rebellion, won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize as well as the Audience Award last night at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival closing awards ceremony. Josh Kriegman and Elye Sternberg’s Weiner, a documentary about beleaguered NYC mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, scored the U.S. Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary. With its record-breaking, $17.5 million sale to Fox Searchlight, The Birth of a Nation had dominated conversation at the festival earlier in the week. Said Turner at the film’s Q&A, “I made this film for one reason […]
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“A Poultry-Infused Visual Remix” of The Shining: Nick DenBoer on The Chickening
A garish, absurdist riff off The Shining, The Chickening is prime fodder for Sundance’s Midnight Shorts Program. Animation duo Nick DenBoer and Davy Force wrote and directed the film, which blends shots from The Shining with a Tim & Eric-esque cocktail of inventive, abrasive imagery about a fried chicken tycoon. Below, DenBoer discusses how he and Force created the meticulously crafted images of their giddy short film. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Nick DenBoer: My co-director Davy Force and I collaborated […]
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DP Philippe Bellaiche on Israel/Palestine Doc The Settlers
Documentary DP Philippe Bellaiche has worked steadily on more than 30 documentary features and shorts over the past 16 years. On The Settlers, the Israel/Palestine documentary from Shimon Dotan, he had his first encounter with physical violence. Below, Bellaiche speaks about the film’s evolving structure, the region’s landscapes and getting assaulted by a group of young men while on a shoot. Dotan and Bellaiche’s previous film together, Hot House, won the Special Jury Prize in the World Documentary program at Sundance 2007. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being […]
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“Inside a Minivan with a Huge Hog”: DP Damian Garcia on Diego Luna’s Mr. Pig
Actor Deigo Luna visits the Sundance Film Festival for the first time as a director with Mr. Pig, a rural road movie starring Danny Glover and Maya Rudolph. The film was shot by Damian Garcia, a DP with more than a dozen Spanish-language shorts and features to his name. Filmmaker spoke with Garcia about the film’s location shooting and unobtrusive visual style. Mr. Pig played in the Premieres program at Sundance 2016. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Garcia: […]
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Co-Director/DP Michael Palmieri on the Arkansas-Set Sundance Short Peace in the Valley
Filmmakers Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher have collaborated on four documentaries since 2009: October Country, Off Label, Rougarouing and, their latest, Peace in the Valley. Presented in the Shorts program at Sundance 2016, their new film concerns issues of religion and LGBT rights in a small Arkansas town. Below, co-director and DP Palmieri discusses his visual approach for the film. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Palmieri: One of the reasons I gravitated towards documentary film had to do […]
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Veteran Doc DP Robert Richman on the Direct Cinema Approach of HBO’s Suited
Veteran DP Robert Richman has shot more than 60 documentary films since 1985, including such heavyweights as An Inconvenient Truth, Waiting for ‘Superman’ and Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. His latest work is Suited, an HBO documentary produced by Lena Dunham. The film profiles Bindle & Keep, a tailoring company in Brooklyn that caters to an LGBTQ community. Richman speaks below about direct cinema, the Maysles brothers and why “pure verite films” are his favorite kind to shoot. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being […]
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“What it’s Like to Lose One’s Sight”: DP Gerry Floyd on Notes on Blindness
An entry in the New Frontier program at Sundance 2016, Notes on Blindness began in 2013 as a four-minute short from writer/directors Pete Middleton and James Spinney. The film attempted to capture the sensory experience of blindness through the audio diary of John Hull, a writer and theologian who had lost his sight. The following year, Middleton and Spinney adapted Notes on Blindness into a longer New York Times Op-Doc. Now, they have adapted this story to a feature length. Below, Notes on Blindness DP Gerry Floyd speaks to how he and the directors sought to offer a “sensory insight” into blindness. Filmmaker: How and […]
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Sundance Veteran DP Patrice Cochet on the Male-Bonding Comedy Joshy
Sundance regular Patrice Cochet has served as DP on four films at the festival since 2002: Better Luck Tomorrow, The End of Love, The Good Life and, as of this year, Joshy. Cochet speaks below about the perils of lighting improv, DPing on little prep and shooting on the Alexa. In addition to Joshy, the prolific Cochet has at least six other films set for release in 2016. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Cochet: Joshy was a film that Producers […]
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Cinematographer Matthew Irving on the ’70s Stylings of Sundance Premiere Outlaws and Angels
For Outlaws and Angels, seasoned DP Matthew Irving and first-time writer/director JT Moliner wanted a film that looked as though it were “excavated straight out of a vault from the 1970s.” Irving shot the film on 35mm and used Robert Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller as a chief reference point. Below, Irving talks about shooting on 35, the film’s elaborate 11-minute long take and the “grit and grain” of ’70s cinema. Outlaws and Angels made its world premiere at Sundance 2016. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led […]
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Cinematographer Fraser Rice on Finding Poetry in the Shipyards for Sundance Short Mining Poems or Odes
Appearing in the Shorts Program #5 at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, Mining Poems or Odes tells the Scotland-set story of an ex-shipyard welder turned writer. The short was shot by Fraser Rice, a cinematographer on a number of UK TV series. Rice is also the brother of the film’s director, Callum. Below, Rice discusses the origins and creative goals of Mining Poems or Odes. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Rice: I am a director of […]
