Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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transmediale 2015: Vicki Bennett and Citation City
Since 1988 transmediale has been one of Europe’s premiere events for showcasing transmedia and technology for art and narrative and nonfiction storytelling. Director Kristoffer Gansing (who spoke with Filmmaker last year) and his team continue to assemble cutting-edge films, installations, performances, workshops, and other events, turning the House of World Cultures in Berlin into a hub for all things new media. It runs this week from January 28 through February 1, and I spoke with a number of artists who are presenting video-based pieces at the festival. British artist Vicki Bennett has been working under the name People Like Us since […]
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“Trying to Play, More or Less, ‘By the Book'”: Results | Director Andrew Bujalski
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? I confronted plenty of fears, don’t know that I *conquered* any of them per se. On this movie I was taking most of the ideas & philosophies I’d developed over the last 15 years of work and tossing them out, trying to play instead, more or less, “by the book.” Of course I still made plenty of unconventional decisions and I suspect the movie is as idiosyncratic as anything […]
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Sundance 2015: Results, Entertainment and The Witch
He may not be your bag, but it’s tough to deny that Andrew Bujalski is one of the most distinctive American independent filmmakers working today. So distinctive that even when he sets his sights on the pseudo-pedestrian genre of the romantic comedy, he finds a way to completely reconfigure the shape of its central love triangle. In Results, Trevor (Guy Pearce) is an Australian in Austin who owns the Power 4 Life fitness studio, living and breathing his own advertising mantras about self-improvement. The recently divorced, suddenly rich Danny (Kevin Corrigan, brilliant) is new in town and eager to buy […]
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Pussy Riot: Celiné Sciamma’s Girlhood
We’re beautiful/Like diamonds in the sky. Clad in ripped-off-the-rack evening dresses with anti-theft devices intact, four teens who form a tight clique — semi-tough, to borrow from the Michael Ritchie/Burt Reynolds satire — lip-synch and boogie down to the assertive voice of Rihanna. Celebrating their frequently downplayed femininity, they spiritedly defuse in a hotel room rented for one special night, recharging from the heavy-attitude posturing and word- and fist-fights with newly cast rivals that interrupt their day-to-day aimlessness. Their loyal, affectionate companionship counters the ennui and male dominance entrenched in the world of charmless concrete projects that is Le Clos-Francais, their […]
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2015 Sundance Short Film Award Winners
Last evening at Jupiter Bowl in Kimball Junction, the 2015 Sundance Short Film Awards were doled out over a somewhat temperamental microphone. Stationed at the foot of a bowling alley, Director of Programming Trevor Groth said a few words before turning it over to Jared Hess, who is at the festival with his latest, Don Verdean. Hess told a nice anecdote about forcing his wife Jerusha Hess to invite Pauly Shore to a screening of their first Slamdance short decades back, before reminding the audience that any interest you court in a short film is reason to stay true to that unadulterated vision. The mic […]
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Cinematographer Peter Donahue on Shooting Sundance Documentary Prophet’s Prey
PROPHET’S PREY – Peter Donahue I first got involved with the Prophet’s Prey project after meeting Amy Berg. Her work has always been something I have admired since seeing her “Deliver us From Evil.” To shoot a documentary, you first have to know that you are in good hands and feel passionate about the subject. So when Amy said she was going to make another film about the abuses of power within an organized religion — and it involved John Krakauer –I was in! Like all documentaries, our first challenge was budget. We first thought we should stay away from […]
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Cinematographer Bradley Stonesifer on Shooting Bobcat Goldthwait’s Sundance Competition Doc, Call Me Lucky
Call Me Lucky is Bobcat Goldthwait’s documentary portrait of fellow comedian Barry Crimmins, who is not as famous as he should be for his barbed political satire — and whose outsider activism led him to dark places, as this documentary reveals. To visually capture Crimmins on and off stage, Goldthwait turned to his frequent cinematographer Bradley Stonesifer, who previously screened at Sundance with Lee Toland Krieger’s dramatic feature, The Vicious Kind. Below Stonesifer answers questions about that collaboration and doing big theatrical lighting on a shoestring budget. Call Me Lucky premieres January 27, 2015 in the Sundance Documentary Competition section […]
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Cinematographer Rob Givens on Shooting Sundance Premiere I’ll See You in My Dreams
Rob Givens reteams with The New Year director Brett Haley with I’ll See You in My Dreams, a drama starring Blythe Danner as a retired widower suddenly adjusting to the loss of her dog. The film screens in the Premieres section beginning Tuesday, January 27, and below Givens discusses his ongoing collaboration with Haley, why he chose to shoot on the Sony F55, and getting out of the way of the actors. 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 […]
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“I Believe the Most Important Changes Will Come from Women Lifting Up Other Women”: Sarah Hack on Business and Legal Affairs
I’m with a small group of friends for our inaugural weekly movie night. Thinking that a club name will beget commitment, we arbitrarily choose “Zeitgeist.” It’s the first word we see, frozen on the makeshift projector screen. Zeitgeist Films is the distribution company for our opening film, the first in Laura Poitras’ post-9/11 trilogy and a 2007 Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary, My Country, My Country. For her film Citizenfour, Poitras is one of two female directors nominated for Best Documentary in the 2015 Oscar race. None have been nominated this year for Achievement in Directing. None have been […]
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Cinematographer Matthias Grunsky on Shooting Andrew Bujalski’s Sundance Competition Film, Results
Austrian-born cinematographer Matthias Grunsky has been a steady collaborator of director Andrew Bujalski from his 2001 debut, Funny Ha Ha to the more recent Computer Chess, for which Grunsky was nominated for Best Cinematography at the Independent Spirit Awards. From grainy black-and-white to what appears to be a slicker look for their latest, Results, Grunsky has adapted his technique to Bujalski’s desire for small crews and low-key environments. Below, Grunsky discusses that process as well as the detailed testing process he undertakes on his pictures. Results premieres Tuesday, January 27 in the Dramatic Competition of the Sundance Film Festival. Filmmaker: […]
