Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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“The More a Film Challenges an Audience, the More Resistance It Will Inspire”: Five Principles to Live By for Provocative Filmmakers
Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Guy Davidi is currently raising funds on Indiegogo for Mixed Feelings. From the Indiegogo page: is an inspiring story about cultural resistance of Israeli director and teacher, Amir Orian – a once successful actor that left his blooming career to create an alternative theater in his own apartment. This documentary tries to create space for artistic expression and the discussion of alternative points of view in a country troubled by destructive nationalistic forces.” Below, Davidi writes about the life of the filmmaker who chooses to make provocative work. Please visit the Indiegogo page linked above to learn more […]
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In the Family Way: Still Alice
To watch Julianne Moore portray a 49-year-old woman diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s might be as close as one can get to understanding the disease and its effects on patient and family without having oneself received a positive diagnosis. Make no mistake, though: Still Alice is no downer. It is a closely observed and brilliantly performed story of struggle and — how can I write this out without appearing trite? — love. Director-driven it is not. Yes, it is nicely shot (by Olivier Assayas’s frequent DP Denis Lenoir) and suitably edited. Filmmakers Richard Glatzer (whose battle with ALS since 2011 became […]
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The U.K. Crackdown on Porn – And Why It Hurts Independent Producers
If Britain’s recently enacted legislation – specifically, the Brazil-sounding Audiovisual Media Services Regulations 2014 – wasn’t on your radar, you can be forgiven. As an American it wasn’t on mine either. Basically, this is an amendment to the U.K.’s 2003 Communications Act, which now requires that those producing online porn in the U.K. must come under the same BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) scrutiny as those producing DVDs for the sex shop market. Innocuous enough, right? Problem is, this new law bans British porn producers from depicting a variety of fairly ordinary BDSM practices. Among the list of over […]
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Watch: How to Highlight Depth of Field
As a two dimensional medium, film employs a handful of techniques to convey a greater depth of field than what exists in a given frame. In this handy video, cinematographer Matthew Rosen breaks down his five favorite ways to highlight depth, through lighting, focus, perspective, parallax, and occlusion. The dolly effect, which Rosen argues is perhaps most effective in relating depth of field to an audience, is in fact a combination of parallax and occlusion.
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Red Giant’s Shooter Suite: Video Acquisition and Image Processing Software
Red Giant have been expanding their software offerings. Well known for their easy-to-use color correction tools Magic Bullet and Colorista, they’ve also built up a wide collection of tools for keying and effects. Their latest suite consists of some new tools and some updated ones and is geared towards content acquisition and initial image manipulation. The Red Giant Shooter Suite consists of the following applications: OffLoad, BulletProof, and PluralEyes, as well as the plug-ins Denoiser II, Frames, Instant 4K and Lut Buddy. I was most interested in the two acquisition tools, Offload and BulletProof, but it’s worth running down the […]
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Red River Vallée: Wild
It is Day 80 of a tremendously difficult, three-month, 1100-mile trek up the Pacific Crest Trail, from the Mojave Desert to the Bridge of the Gods that spans the Columbia River at the Oregon-Washington border. On a narrow path in a lush Oregonian rain forest, Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon) runs into an elderly woman and her grandson — an angel-faced child of no more than five — accompanied, perhaps not so strangely, by a pet llama. The precocious boy politely offers her a tune. His rendition of “Red River Valley” is as innocent as the nostalgic lyrics, so pure it […]
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Short Film: Ferguson NYC Protests, Scored by Dev Hynes
In the days following the Grand Jury decision to not indict Darren Wilson in the murder of Michael Brown, protests and marches were held throughout the country in solidarity with the people of Ferguson. In New York, crowds wound their way through middle and lower Manhattan, across the bridges, and into Brooklyn. This short film from the music video director Aaron Stewart-Ahn, set to a piano tune from Dev Hynes, captures an evening of protests, with some beautiful, rankling imagery: white people pushing against the crowds as they stare into his camera; bus passengers with their hands held high, mirroring […]
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10 More Really Bad Things About the Film Business, 2014
Along with the usual “ten best” lists, year’s ends in the movie blogosphere have recently included producer and Fandor CEO’s exhaustive surveys of the film industry’s good and the bad — the business practices, social trends and technological issues that improve or deteriorate our lives as both filmmakers and film viewers. This year, prior to their complete unveiling at his Hope for Film blog, Hope has given three outlets early previews. Below, here at Filmmaker, are 10 More Bad Things about the Film Business, following up on Hope’s first ten over at Keyframe and 10 Really Good Things about the […]
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How I Gained 20 Pounds and Found My Next Movie
Currently on our curated Kickstarter page is Hungry for Love, a food-fueled love story directed by Justin Ambrosino. Below is a guest essay from the film’s producer, Soojin Chung, on her own journey towards the culinary when she moved to the U.S. Please visit the film’s Kickstarter page to learn more and consider donating. Growing up in Korea, I was never interested in food. I was an unusual kid who never asked for candy or hamburgers like the other children. In fact, food was last on my list of things to obsess over. But since I moved to America things […]
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Trailer Watch: Spike Lee’s Vampire Film Da Sweet Blood of Jesus
Here’s the trailer for Spike Lee’s forthcoming, crowdfunded vampire film Da Sweet Blood of Jesus. The trailer for what’s reportedly a close remake of Bill Gunn’s 1973 cult classic Ganja and Hess lets us know that everybody’s addicted to something — “sex, food, drugs, nicotine, alcohol, money, power,” says star Stephen Tyrone Williams. Expect all of that to explode in what’s billed up front as “the newest, hottest Spike Lee joint.” The film hits theaters and iTunes on February 13.
