Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Watch: What Makes a Video Essay Great?
As our attention spans grow increasingly shorter in the age of information, there appears to be a growing audience for a form of film criticism beyond the written word. More precisely, for the video essay. Kevin B. Lee, the video essayist at Fandor, provides a nice inquiry into the state of the video essay today in his year-end recap, spotlighting the efforts of Tony Zhou and ::kogonada, while musing on what viewers respond to in their works: decisive analysis, politics, or the occasional cinephile fetishism. Further, Lee considers how even a narration-less supercut can adhere to its maker’s perspective based […]
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2014: The Year of 4K
At the end of 2013 I wrote: 2013 wasn’t so much the year of 4K, as the year of “do we need 4K?” For most of the year I was a skeptic, but now I’m starting to think that 2014 will bethe year of 4K. And here we are at the end of 2014 and I look back and think, “I really hit that one out of the park!” Not that it took a lot of genius to read the tea leaves or see the writing on the wall: 2014 was definitely the year of 4K. Whether it was the F5/F55 […]
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A Best Cinematography of 2014 Supercut
Here’s an elegant and understated supercut from Jacob T. Swinney, scored with a meditative cue by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Alongside some of the big Hollywood titles — Interstellar, Godzilla — are a number of indies and foreign films like Blue Ruin, Ida and White Bird in a Blizzard. Check it out.
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The Reel Distribution Politik of The Interview
The year’s most fascinating entertainment story gets even more so today, as the Seth Rogen/James Franco North Korea-baiting The Interview becomes available for online rental and purchase via YouTube, Google Play and Sony’s own site, with a limited theatrical release occurring tomorrow. (As I post this, Sony’s site just reveals the film’s poster art.) Only days after issuing a statement saying the studio “had no plans” to release the film, it has suddenly become the poster child for the day-and-date exhibition of a studio release — a distribution strategy the theater chains have been balking at for years. From Todd […]
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Ten Oscar-Worthy 2014 Documentary Favorites
Serving as the director of programming for this year’s Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival meant I watched way too many nonfiction films in 2014, some filled with stunning artistry, others with cringe-worthy talking heads. And since the Academy doc committee’s shortlist had me both cheering (Last Days in Vietnam! Tales of the Grim Sleeper!) and scratching my head (Citizen Koch? Really?) I thought I’d compile my own wish-it-were-this list for Oscar 2015. So here, in alphabetical order, are my 10 Doc Picks — only two of which overlap with the Oscar documentary shortlist — from the 134 submitted for Oscar […]
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Watch: Sean Price Williams’ Frantic Fran’s Jewish Stuff
Last week, Robert Greene posted a “virtually unseen” mid-length documentary, shot and edited by Sean Price Williams in 1998, entitled Frantic Fran’s Jewish Stuff. Three years before the cinematographer’s first official credit, and nine years before his quasi-breakthrough with Frownland, the 16mm film presages the close-ups and striking compositions that earned Williams some of the best notices of his career with this year’s Listen Up Philip. And it’s pretty entertaining, as well.
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“I Don’t Know If Camus Would Have Approved”: Five Questions for Far From Men Director David Oelhoffen
David Oelhoffen’s latest film, Far From Men, is based on Albert Camus’ short story “The Guest.” Set during the Algerian War and shot in the manner of a Western, the film features a French and Arabic-speaking Viggo Mortensen as Daru, a schoolteacher in remote Algeria required, against his will, to transport murderous prisoner Mohamed (Reda Kateb) to meet his justice. The two men must confront their own morality and each other against a backdrop of the Atlas Mountains. The powerful film recently played at the Marrakech International Film Festival, near where the film was shot. Mortensen received a career tribute award for the […]
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How to Find a Producer for Your Independent Film
“How do I find a producer?” It’s a question asked by many first-time independent writer/directors, and there’s good reason this seemingly simple query is so vexing. Screenwriters selling commercial screenplays and directors seeking employment on Hollywood pictures are guided by standard, usually market-based protocols. But it’s not so easy for budding independent auteurs — those without agents, managers or box-office track records. For them, partnering with a producer is as much about building a personal relationship as scoring a business transaction. At least, that’s what a number of producers interviewed here likened it to. Mary Jane Skalski (Very Good Girls, […]
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2014: The Year in Movers, Shakers and Standout Scenes
Last year I skirted around the issue of a Top 10 list by highlighting my 10 favorite scenes of the year, my logic hovering somewhere above “What is an effective film, if not the sum of its parts?” This year, I’m not so sure that axiom stands. Whether or not you regard it as the masterpiece it may or may not be, Richard Linklater’s Boyhood has unimpeachably proved to be *the* film of 2014. I was fortunate it enough to see it in its best possible setting: front row at the Paramount Theater at SXSW, where a sizable chunk of the audience was hometown cast and crew. […]
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The Strange Dream: Pitching Your Film at the CPH:FORUM
CPH:DOX is like a strange dream. That dream where you wake up and everyone understands that artistically motivated documentaires have a place, have meaning, are celebrated. And frankly the weirder the better. The pitch forum at this Copenhagen-based documentary festival is no exception. Coming up on its fourth year, it is the home of the eccentric doc sibling. The one that confounds and delights, and maybe has broadcast potential, but maybe could also play in an art gallery. In its beautiful peculiarity, the CPH:DOX forum stands out strongly from most of the other pitch forums that abound on the documentary […]
