Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Sentient Images: RaMell Ross on Nickel Boys
RaMell Ross’s 2018 feature debut, Hale County This Morning, This Evening, is a non-narrative portrait of its Alabama locale, shot entirely by the filmmaker over years of immersion, his instinctually captured material assembled into intricate juxtapositions. Few scale-ups for a second film have been more dramatic: Nickel Boys is a narrative feature adapted from a pre-existing text (Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer-winning novel The Nickel Boys), proceeding in more-or-less linear order through an incident-filled narrative, with an on-record budget of around $23 million and production handled by Plan B Entertainment and Louverture Films. The latter’s Joslyn Barnes was also a producer and […]
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Hits & Misses 2024: Case Studies of Six Sundance 2024 Premieres
In September, Variety declared, “Indie Films Are Staging a Box Office Comeback,” touting the success of the films Longlegs, Thelma and Late Night with the Devil as signs of life for a segment of the industry “crushed by COVID, strikes and streaming,” as reporter Brent Lang wrote. “And while it’s a long way from the arthouse heyday of the 1990s and early aughts, the turnaround is impressive.” Maybe not that impressive. Citing the more than $100 million global gross of Longlegs, a NEON-produced wide-release serial-killer movie, as some kind of indie darling misses the point. Thelma and Late Night are […]
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My Hot Librarian Summer: Libraries and Independent Film Distribution Strategies
It can take two or more years for independent films to progress through festival, theatrical, VOD, streaming and maybe airline releases, after which their discoverability fades. For filmmakers, the question then becomes, “How will people discover my movie now?” For many, the answer revolves around libraries. Across public, college and university libraries, there are estimates that up to 30 percent of library checkouts are movies, not books. Filled with DVDs, libraries have become the new Blockbuster—but, increasingly reliant on library-specific streaming services, they’re also becoming the new Netflix. Many of us independent filmmakers are so excited to sign a distribution […]
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“Don’t Expect to Like ‘Em:” The Making of Elaine May’s Mikey and Nicky
Entering to a standing ovation at a Friday-night screening of Mikey and Nicky at New York’s Metrograph on December 6, Elaine May looked out at the full house. “I was told this entire audience is made up of editors,” she said. And then, mock-anticipating their first question, she declared “Steenbeck,” name-checking the flatbed editing table on which her 1976 film was cut. The event was organized by the American Cinema Editors as part of their ongoing Filmcraft series at the Lower East Side Theater, and May was accompanied onstage by two editors; series moderator Phillip Schopper, and Jeffrey Wolf, who […]
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Considerations: More Golden Globes Silly Season
Every Tuesday Tyler Coates publishes his new Filmmaker newsletter, Considerations, devoted to the awards race. To receive it early and in your in-box, subscribe here. We’re now five weeks away from the Jan. 17 Oscar noms, and the last few days have seen which campaigns are working—at least with critics and whoever is voting for the Golden Globes these days. And miraculously, no main frontrunner has emerged in the best picture race, although the sure things are making themselves known. Over the last week, while publications began rolling out their year-end lists, critics in New York and Los Angeles voted […]
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UTA Partner Theresa Peters Joins the Gotham Film & Media Institute’s Board of Directors
The Gotham Film & Media Institute, Filmmaker‘s parent publication, announced today that UTA Partner Theresa Peters will join the organization’s Board of Directors. Known as a guiding force in entertainment who has shaped the evolution of countless careers across film and media, Peters will work with The Gotham to advance its mission of celebrating and nurturing independent film and media creators by providing career-building resources, access to industry influencers, and pathways to wider recognition. “Theresa Peters represents the very best of what an industry leader can be – someone who not only shapes the careers of renowned artists but also creates […]
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“Transitioning From Digital Back to Film”: DP Ed Lachman on Maria
For years the object of cult devotion, Maria Callas went from a dazzling career as a soprano to international celebrity, a figure of relentless scrutiny even after she lapsed into silence. Maria continues director Pablo Larraín’s fascination with larger-than-life figures like Jacqueline Onassis (Jackie) and Princess Diana (Spencer). Here, Angelina Jolie takes on the role of Callas, seen over several years of her life in Europe and the United States. Larraín’s kaleidoscopic approach jumps among timelines and locations, assembling a character from moments large and small. Although we see glimpses of Callas’s successes on stage, Steven Knight’s screenplay primarily takes […]
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Considerations: Holding Space for Sing Sing
Every Tuesday Tyler Coates publishes his new Filmmaker newsletter, Considerations, devoted to the awards race. To receive it early and in your in-box, subscribe here. Last March, in the week leading up to the 96th Academy Awards ceremony, I received an invitation from BBC News to chat about Bradley Cooper. An interview with him had recently gone viral for a clip where Cooper teared up while speaking of Leonard Bernstein, whom he played in Maestro. (He earned three Oscar nominations for that film—best picture, actor and original screenplay—but was passed over for his direction). In a brief phone call with […]
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Everything That Will Happen Has Already Happened (Or Why I Still Make Independent Ultra-Low-Budget Films in a Time of Media Oversaturation)
I’ve been making films for many years now, at the unusual intersection of US independent and East-European cinema, and teaching at a university in New York. When COVID hit, it made me re-evaluate everything I was doing. I stopped the projects I was working on as they seemed superfluous in that reality. To me, the global response to the pandemic demonstrated like nothing before the shocking inability of international and national institutions to cooperate and deal efficiently and equitably with a planetary crisis. And now, it almost seems as if nothing had happened; it’s just “business as usual.” But it’s […]
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Failure as Creative Inspiration: How I Shot — and Recorded — My Christmas-Set Musical Long December in 12 Days
In 2015 I directed my first feature. It would be six years before I was able to direct my second. But once I had completed the first draft of that script, we had the film in the can within six months. It was a breakneck pace making Long December, a Christmas-set musical drama about a singer/songwriter chasing his dreams of stardom. Its process was complicated further by my choice to not only fill the story with musical numbers performed by the cast but to capture those performances live on-camera — with no lip-syncing or back-tracking. Pulling it off took a […]
