Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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NYFF Critics’ Notebook: De Palma
Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow’s De Palma is a fans-only interview session with the director. Straightforward, even staid in its construction, it consists almost entirely of two shots of a seated De Palma — one in medium close-up, the other presumably punched-in in post — and appositely illustrative clips and stills. The film currently only has two credits: the opening all-caps title “DE PALMA” scrolling left to right in lurid red, and a closing copyright credit (hard-working editors will, presumably, be thanked at a later date). Interlocutors Baumbach and Paltrow are never heard; according to this useful interview, they never even considered […]
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Free Animated Icons, After Effects Presets and More for Your Video Project from PremiumBeat (Sponsored Post)
PremiumBeat, a royalty free music library, offers a variety of affordably licensable cues that can be used in your video project. In addition, the company is offering a number of other useful tools for free that can be of use for your video editing projects. Here are five of the most recent packages from their site: 20 free hand-made animated icons that can be dropped into your package. The icons are all pre-rendered footage, meaning they’ll work in any video editing or motion graphic software. The icons were all created in After Effects and you’ll see the project file included […]
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NYFF ’15: Laura Poitras, AJ Schnack and Charlotte Cook Talk Field of Vision
Ahead of the official launch of Field of Vision at 1 pm today, co-creators Laura Poitras, AJ Schnack and Charlotte Cook gave an NYFF free talk last night on the brand new documentary unit of The Intercept. The trio spoke at length about their aims within the realm of episodic and short form nonfiction, and how the filmmaker-driven platform will function at the nexus of journalism and documentary. Below are a few highlights. Poitras was inspired to create Field of Vision after working with both The New York Times and Julian Assange. While working on the feature films that constitute her post-9/11 trilogy, Poitras […]
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“I Went to Art School, Not Film School”: Jennifer Reeder at IFP Film Week
[Editor’s note: this is Jennifer Reeder’s second guest post from IFP Independent Film Week. Her first can be found here.] Coming to you live from the end of Independent Film Week. My script As With Knives and Skin was part of the Emerging Storytellers section of the Project Forum. I not only survived, I thrived! I pitched my a$$ off and had a really successful week – if success is measured in great connections, meaningful conversations, advice received, notes taken and a general mutual love of Indie filmmaking. I went into this week with a script that recently won a Creative […]
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NYFF Critics’ Notebook: Carol and The Assassin
At no point in Todd Haynes’ Carol is the word “lesbian” heard — nor “homosexual,” the now-arcane “homophile” or any other period-appropriate descriptor of the LGBTQ spectrum. This is the love that literally dare not speak its name, a conspicuous absence viewers will automatically fill in (especially after seeing dozens of headlines and articles bluntly/reductively identifing the film as a “lesbian drama”). Depending on your POV, this resistance to labeling is either an accurate depiction of period repression, or oddly up-to-the-minute given increased aversion to categorical sexual labels and regular terminological resets. As in Safe, Far From Heaven and Mildred Pierce, […]
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In the Pope’s Shadow: Michael Curtis Johnson at IFP Film Week
[Editor’s note: this is Michael Curtis Johnson’s second guest post from IFP Independent Film Week. His first can be found here.] Sunset. Jamaica, Queens. The final day of IFP Film Week 2015. I’m spending my last night in a hotel watching Pope Francis’ Mass at Madison Square Garden on TV. The plan is to eat one last slice of New York Pizza from Margherita, get on a redeye and “go in peace.” “Thanks be to God!” Cue the recessional hymn. But let me take it back to the Introductory Rites. My trip started with the marketing portion of the the […]
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Watch: Shading and Cutting in Cassavetes’ Shadows
Amid all of the internet’s Kubrick/Anderson/Fincher devotees, few video essayists turn their scalpel toward Cassavetes, perhaps in part because his directing prowess is not so easily distilled. Kevin B. Lee has thus chosen to focus on the opening 14 shots of Cassavetes’ debut Shadows, and how he uses incisive editing and lighting to convey the shifting sentiments in a series of scenes between the two lovers Leila and Tony. Check it out above.
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Roofless: Ramin Bahrani’s 99 Homes
“America doesn’t bail out losers,” real-estate-loophole master practitioner Rick Carver (Michael Shannon) tells victim-turned-protégé Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield). “This nation is rigged for winners.” He proceeds to milk Noah’s ark for a metaphor. “I’m not going to drown.” With rapid visuals, pounding music, characters constantly in motion, montages of exploiters in action, and his usual astute observations of processes that enable the marring of innocents, Ramin Bahrani (Goodbye Solo, Chop Shop, Man Push Cart) impeccably dramatizes the reality behind this cynical point of view. One that, as the the chasm between the 99% and the 1% widens, is especially valid […]
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Trailer Watch: Jacques Rivette’s Out 1: Noli Me Tangere
To celebrate the November 18 Blu-Ray and DVD release of Jacques Rivette’s opus Out 1: Noli Me Tangere, the French label Carlotta Films has put out a 2 minute trailer for the 775 minute film. For those of us who don’t own a region agnostic Blu-Ray or DVD player (but live in the New York area), it’s worth trying to catch the film at BAM, showing in four parts from November 4 – 19.
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“Pitching Is Just An Extension of Your Best Self”: Reinaldo Marcus Green at IFP Independent Film Week
[This is Reinaldo Marcus Green’s second guest post from IFP Independent Film Week; his first one can be found here.] It’s a wrap on IFP Film Week! Having the Pope in New York City this week certainly added some delays to my daily commute, but I think somehow it also added hope to my meetings. If you saw a Black and Puerto Rican man in a suit and tie running in front of the Vivian Beaumont theater (across from the Henry Moore sculpture pond in Lincoln Center) every single day last week, it was probably me. I want to take […]
