Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Hits & Misses: How Seven Films from Sundance 2015 Performed
The health and identity of American independent cinema has always been difficult to gauge and define, but Sundance is our default arbiter and explainer. Of course, indie film exists far beyond the limits of Park City in January, but the festival gives the nebulous American indie sector a test sample — and as any scientist will tell you, that’s the first step in making an accurate hypothesis. So what can the films of Sundance 2015 clarify about the state of American indies, now and in the future? Some trends can be attributed to random cycles and one-time events, but there […]
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“Sorry” isn’t a Solution: On Mistakes and Film Sets
Mistakes don’t really have a place on a film set. Sets are engineered for performance under pressure, engaging dozens and dozens of professionals, from producers to PAs, to do their best work in order to get the shot, make the day and finish the film on time — all while maintaining a good attitude and supporting the creative process. A good set is a well-oiled machine, with a cinematographer at, or near, the center. As a DP, you are interacting with just about every on-set department. Your job is to make everyone look good, and not just with your lighting! […]
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Learning Not to Share: The Benefits and Pitfalls of Social Media for Independent Films
Mynette Louie, president of Gamechanger Films, recently had a problem. She caught a stand-in on set not only taking photos of her film’s star, whose contract had specific photo approvals in place, but posting the photos to Facebook. “I told him to delete them from his Facebook, then I went through his phone and deleted all the photos he took on set.” Traditionally, producers, marketing departments and publicists labor over key stills and publicity images, methodically crafting a film’s identity in careful, strategic installments. This practice continues today, but can quickly be subverted by a tweet, post or status update. […]
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Speaking the Same Language: Cocoon Central Dance Team on She Does Podcast
Cocoon Central Dance Team is a New York-based comedy dance troupe made up of three talented women: Sunita Mani, Eleanore Pienta and Tallie Medel. They are each up-and-coming actors in their own right, landing roles in indie films, big music videos and on television. But their work as a trio, as Cocoon Central Dance Team, is what we focus on in this episode of She Does Podcast because they truly are a remarkably talented, gut-busting, thigh slapping, absurd-outfit-wearing, glitter-throwing, dance-until-you-laugh-until-you-cry group of women. Cocoon has performed at Upright Citizen’s Brigade, MoMa PS1, The Pit, Showgasm with John Early and Cast […]
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The Jaunt ONE — Development of a VR Camera
The past year has seen a lot of development in VR cameras – cameras that can shoot 360-degree video. Offerings range from inexpensive rigs for mounting multiple GoPros to custom units that cost many thousands of dollars. It’s an interesting field for sports and experiences, though it remains to be seen how this will impact narrative film making. We recently spoke to Koji Gardiner, Jaunt’s Director of Hardware Engineering, about their Jaunt ONE camera. This is a single unit that contains 24 camera mechanisms. After two years of development the unit is now being used for a variety of production […]
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Finding The Right Music for Your Film Just Got Personal (Sponsored Post)
Over the years, Musicbed has become a go-to source for licensable tracks for two simple reasons: they carry nothing but great music, and their library is easy to navigate. With new updates out today, Musicbed has capitalized on their strengths and added a few key conveniences that make them the best and most intuitive music licensing service out there right now. For readers of Filmmaker, they’re offering a 20% discount on your first music license. Use the code FM50 at checkout. Here are a few Musicbed features, new and old, that set the site apart: Rapidly Growing Curated Library It’s pretty […]
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Hands on with GoPro Rigs from PolarPro
One of the little gems I stumbled on in the far reaches of the central hall at NAB last year was Polar Pro, a company that’s been putting out clever GoPro rigs (among other things). I got a chance to put some of their gear to the test on a recent climbing trip in Arizona. Here are my thoughts. ProGrip and StrapMount The ProGrip is a handy mount for the GoPro and remote, making handheld shots a little more stable and adding easier access to control of the camera with the placement of the remote. I loved it. The handle […]
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Anomalisa, Stop-Motion Animation and How 3D Printers are Changing Filmmaking
Remember stop-motion, that venerable technique of animated films ranging from old-time children’s classics by Rankin/Bass to sword-and-sandals epics by Ray Harryhausen? Given the success of Pixar’s movies, Minions and other computer-animated features, you might have thought that 2D, hand-drawn, and traditional stop-motion has been relegated to the dust bin of history. Well, if you are a fan of these styles, don’t lose hope just yet. Opening just before the New Year was Charlie Kaufman’s much-anticipated directorial follow up to 2008’s Synecdoche, New York, Anomalisa. Directed by Kaufman and Duke Johnson, it’s being touted for its unique amalgam of animation processes […]
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“All My Characters Are Like Buster Keaton”: Corneliu Porumboiu on The Treasure
Corneliu Porumboiu is the most drolly despairing filmmaker of the Romanian New Wave. His previous narrative feature, When Nights Falls on Bucharest, or Metabolism, followed a director in the middle of production breaks off an affair with his lead actress while exasperating his patient producer. The opening shot is the director discoursing pedantically on the merits of celluloid; the movie was itself shot on film, and the joke is that this opening shot lasts exactly as long as one reel — deep drollery indeed. Following 2014’s one-off experiment The Second Game (in which Porumboiu and his dad watch a VHS tape of a Ceaușescu-era soccer game […]
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Christian Carnality: Stephen Cone’s Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party
The below review of Stephen Cone’s Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party was originally posted on June 16 as part of a review of BAMcinemafest. It is being reposted to coincide with the film’s opening as part of the IFP Screen Forward series. A nearly lily-white poolside birthday party in the upper-middle-class Chicago backyard of exuberant, righteous minister “Pastor Bob” Campbell (Pat Healy) and his gorgeous, younger, joyless wife Kat (Elizabeth Laidlaw) celebrates the seventeenth birthday of their handsome, blond-haired, blue-eyed son Henry — the nice, polite, and well-liked boy parents are proud to call their own. Like many youths his age, […]
