Filmmaking
Filmmaking
-
“I Am Here to Declare the Word ‘Documentarian’ Dead”: Michael Moore’s Documentary Commandments
Michael Moore loves TIFF and this week he paid the festival back with a series of events and screenings, including the 25th anniversary presentation of Roger & Me and a keynote speech at the Doc Conference. The love affair began in 1989 when Roger & Me — about first-time filmmaker Moore chasing Ford Motors CEO Roger Smith to talk about layoffs that devastated his hometown of Flint, Michigan — captured the audience award and launched the film. Thom Powers, TIFF’s international documentary programmer, described the movie at the Monday night screening (to showcase the new digital restoration) as a “linchpin film […]
-
Five Questions with Before We Go Director Chris Evans
Making his directorial debut with a nighttime two-hander, Before We Go, actor Chris Evans has gravitated to dramatic material far removed from the effects-driven world saving of his Captain America movies. Starring alongside Alice Eve, Evans puts his own spin on the “one night” film, a sub-genre that has been explored over the years in pictures ranging from Before Sunrise to Into the Night to In Search of a Midnight Kiss. Here, Evans tells us what he tried to do differently and what’s unique about Gotham at night. Before We Go premieres this week at the Toronto International Film Festival. […]
-
Animals, Masks and the Horror of the Abject Object: The Power of Stop Motion Animation
In a world where media makers are acutely focused on creating narratives filled with empathetic characters in relatable environments, it seems worthwhile to look at the role artifice has played in the past and what is being lost due to its absence. Myth is filled with hard-to-relate-to characters that evoke tension and mystery. The anthropomorphic animals of Aesop, the half animal/half human gods of ancient Egypt, the half god/half mortal heroes of Greece, and the living dead of Haitian folklore are all creatures that defy simple quantification. In these creatures we see more than just a reflection of our outer […]
-
Thinking About Screenwriting in a New (Old) Way Or: A Call To Arms!
When I wrote my recent feature Test I ignored the usual advice about screenwriting structure. It was a leap of faith and an experiment in not knowing. Compared to earlier writing experiences (a co-written first feature, The New Twenty, and two other scripts that didn’t get made), the process may have been difficult, but it felt right. In addition to letting myself not know the story until after it was written, I also ignored standard industry orthodoxy about keeping description to a minimum. I wanted a movie with long sequences that had no dialogue, that depended on image and sound. If […]
-
First Footage from the 4K Panasonic VariCam 35
It feels a bit cruel to share such attractive footage from the brand new 4K Panasonic camera, the VariCam 35, when it will undoubtedly fetch up to a nearly unattainable price. Whilst reviewing the specs back in March, Michael Murie noted that Panasonic gave a ballpark figure of “over $10,000 and under $1,000,000,” so there’s still hope that it lands near the former and not the latter. In any event, here’s your first look at some of the camera’s capabilities per its Super 35 sensor. For a further breakdown of the VariCam’s features, check out an interview with Panasonic’s Senior Product Manager […]
-
“Take What’s Useful from Your Teachers”: Denzel Washington and Antoine Fuqua at TIFF
This week Denzel Washington and director Antoine Fuqua unveiled their new thriller The Equalizer at TIFF, but over the weekend they spoke at a 90-minute Mavericks conversation. About 500 fans packed the elegant Isabel Bader Theatre a few miles north of the TIFF Bell Lightbox on Saturday afternoon to hear Washington, who dominated the casual chat. Several times, Washington implored the many actors in the audience to perform on stage, not film. “Acting is acting,” he declared. “I don’t know what film acting is. The truth is the truth.” His first love is theater; film was an accident in his life. “I wasn’t planning […]
-
Camera Moves with the Freefly Tero
Freefly made a splash with their MōVI brushless gimbals, and now they have a remote controlled car. The Tero is a remote controlled car that has had a “full overhaul.” This includes run flat wheels, larger shocks, and wire rope isolators between the mounting cheeseplate and the car to further reduce vibration. At the recent Massachusetts Media Expo, Dylan Law, the in-house Freefly MōVI tech at Rule Boston Camera, talked about the car and even did a short demo. The car can reach speeds of up to 55 miles per hour and is literally plug-in and go. The car was fitted […]
-
“Books First and Experience Second”: Edward Zwick’s Advice To Young Filmmakers
Edward Zwick is at TIFF to premiere his chess drama Pawn Sacrifice, but over the weekend he spoke to young filmmakers from around the world at Films of City Frames. The Saturday morning event unveiled short films produced by New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, London’s National Film and Television School, Rome’s Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, Paris’ Groupe Esra and the Hong Kong Academy of the Performing Arts. The films featured the new line of sunglasses of sponsor Giorgio Armani, who presented the event with Rai Cinema and Luxottica in association […]
-
“Giving Access Back to the People”: Fandor CEO Ted Hope on FIX and the Festival Alliance
Back in July, Fandor announced the implementation of two new initiatives, FIX and the Fandor|Festival Alliance. The former aggregates the work of over a hundred participating filmmakers, fostering audience interaction, while the latter assists festivals with technological services and highlights their programming. When I spoke to Fandor CEO Ted Hope last week, in what I deemed a belated inquiry, he appropriately countered that there is no such thing in the digital era. “Nothing is grounded as this is how it is, it’s constantly being iterated. What we launched with is not where our goal is,” he said of FIX. In our […]
-
Five Questions for Red Army Director Gabe Polsky
Gabe Polsky’s first documentary Red Army briskly reconstructs the story of the fiercely dominant Soviet hockey team of the late ’70s and ’80s. Out of the team, five players coalesced as an unbeatable combination, and their interviews form the backbone of Polsky’s story, fleshed out with a smart selection of archival footage from both sides of the Cold War. Teasing out hockey’s role as a not-so-subtle worldwide representation of the USSR’s success and masculine pride (per a song sung in archival footage by a boy’s choir, “cowards don’t play hockey”), Red Army is also propelled by the light director-subject sparring […]
