Filmmaking
Filmmaking
-
The 12 Most Desired Final Cut Pro X Features
Final Cut Pro X (FCP X) was announced in April of 2011 and released in June of the same year. In the nearly three years since its release I have slowly increased the amount of work I do with it. As of this writing I am in the early stages of editing a feature-length documentary using Final Cut Pro X. I agree with the post-production masses that say Apple should have handled the launch of FCP X much better than it did. I could go on and on about what I wish they would have done differently. I won’t. That […]
-
Wes Anderson Motifs in GIFs
Each and every frame of a Wes Anderson film is readily distinctive, and not just because of his anachronistic aspect ratios. In the lead-up to the Texan’s Berlinale-winning The Grand Budapest Hotel, an interior design company called Terrys Blinds has fashioned a series of GIFs that showcase six stylistic themes across the directors’ work. Among the GIFs are Anderson’s point of view shots — imbued with a childlike wonder; his use of isolation and contrasting side-by-side staging; and of course, his typefaces. Check them out at the link.
-
Simple Machine to Award Micro-Festival Grants
Simple Machine, the online distribution platform connecting filmmakers to non-theatrical venues, is offering quarterly $1,000 grants to new small, innovative film festivals. “How can we more fully explore the possibilities of hyper-local events designed to create an effective context for contemporary cinema?” asks Simple Machine’s creator, Nandan Rao, in a statement. “How can we push the film-festival concept into smaller, more intimate nooks and crannies in our societal fabric? What new terms are needed to describe the formats of communal movie watching that resonate with us today? These are the questions we’re hoping our grant-winners will help to answer.” The […]
-
Panasonic Commits to 4K, Announces the VariCam 35
For the past couple of years, Panasonic has taken a backseat to Sony and Canon in the cinematography and indie movie world. While Sony and Canon raced to produce new large-sensor cameras in different configurations and prices, Panasonic was content to stick with the low-end AG-AF100, which was released at the end of 2010 and has seen few updates. They have also had some success in ultra low-budget production with the GH2 and GH3, which produce good quality video but are primarily stills cameras. This year Panasonic seems intent on making its move. Or, as a product manager said at […]
-
“In My Film Time Is Shattered”: Producer Anatole Dauman Remembers Working with Alain Resnais
Coinciding with a 2000 retrospective of Alain Resnais’ work organized by both the American Cinematheque and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, producer Florence Dauman gave Filmmaker these quotes from her father, Anatole Dauman, about working with the great director. Through his company, Argos Films, Dauman produced or co-produced many of the masterworks of postwar European cinema – including Resnais’s Night and Fog; Hiroshima, Mon Amour; Last Year at Marienbad; and Muriel. On the occasion of Resnais’ death yesterday at 91, we are reprinting them here. Night and Fog (1956) “It was our first short film together. Would he accept […]
-
All Tomorrow’s Yesterdays: Remembering Alain Resnais (1922 – 2014)
One of cinema’s greats, the French director Alain Resnais, died yesterday, March 1, at the age of 91. The director of such landmark films as Last Year at Marienbad, Hiroshima, Mon Amour, and Night and Fog, he premiered his latest film, Life of Riley, just one month ago at the Berlin Film Festival. In 2000, coinciding with a retrospective organized by both the American Cinematheque and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Peter Bowen wrote the following short essay, and we collected appreciations from three independent directors — Christopher Munch, Keith Gordon and Radley Metzger. It is reprinted below. Perhaps […]
-
Farewell, Nick Dawson (and Cameron Crowe on Hal Ashby)
Once upon a time, every article I wrote for Filmmaker had to cross the virtual desk (email) of Managing Editor Nick Dawson. That day has since passed, which is how I am now able to write the following without Nick protesting in embarrassment or deleting my draft. That’s not to say Nick is ever one to tell someone what they can and can’t write. When an eager IFP intern (me) emailed to ask if she could contribute to Filmmaker — too shy to do so in person — Nick’s first response was “Sure,” his second, “Tell me what interests you.” […]
-
The Changing Face of Scheduling: Boyhood, 52 Tuesdays, The Turning and Highway
Four films that played at the Berlin Film Festival highlighted how directors are using modern technology to completely change the way in which productions are being put together and scheduled. Both 52 Tuesdays and Boyhood were shot intermittently over a long period of time. The Turning had 17 different shoots running concurrently throughout Australia, while the Bollywood film Highway decided where to travel to next and shoot scenes on a day-by-day basis. What marks these productions out from any number of other low-budget independent films is that their directors believed a non-traditional production schedule would result in a better end-product. Rather […]
-
On-Set Death of Sarah Jones Raises Awareness of Film Production Safety
The tragic death of Sarah Jones, a second assistant camerawoman who was struck by a train while shooting the Gregg Allman biopic Midnight Rider last Thursday, has sparked a necessary conversation over the issue of on-set safety. On the first day of production in Jessup, Georgia, the company was shooting a dream sequence with a hospital bed placed over the active train tracks. According to Variety, star William Hurt and director Randall Miller tried but were unable to remove the bed from the tracks as a train approached. Jones was then struck by a piece of flying debris and knocked into the […]
-
“I Wanted to Live in That World From Morning to Evening”: Fyodor Bondarchuk on Stalingrad
Fyodor Bondarchuk’s father Sergei made the 1967 War And Peace, a famously profligate Soviet production with thousands of army soldiers as extras and the biggest budget in the USSR’s history. His son came up through music videos and advertisements, making a splash with 2005’s Afghan War drama The 9th Company. The lavish Stalingrad was shot in two parts, as much as possible in 3D; if nothing else, it’ll go down in a sub-section of film history as Russia’s first IMAX film. It’s a tremendously odd film, the kind of overtly nationalistic take on the WWII battle you’d expect from an […]
