Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Five Questions with Point and Shoot Director Marshall Curry
A shy, sheltered, OCD-afflicted only child, Baltimore native Matthew VanDyke was not the likeliest member of the 2011 Libyan rebel militia, but Point and Shoot, the new documentary from Academy Award-nominee Marshall Curry, chalks VanDyke’s trajectory up to sheer sense of adventure. Determined to give himself “a crash course in manhood,” VanDyke leaves Baltimore behind with a camera in hand, winding his way through Africa atop a motorcycle. Along the way, he meets Nuri, his iconoclast counterpoint who will draw him into the revolution. Filmmaker spoke to Curry about relating someone else’s footage, and the documentarian’s dilemma of capturing the moment truthfully and artfully. Point […]
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Five Lessons From a Work-In-Progress Screening
At the end of 2012, Matt Syzmanowski penned a guest post for us on the development of his feature, The Purple Onion. Now, as he’s finishing the final cut of the film, he sends us this follow-up detailing one unusual step along the way: screening the film to a large audience at Cinequest as a work-in-progress. Below are his five pieces of advice for any filmmaker on improving a cut using audience feedback. — SM The Cinequest Film Festival invited us to screen our debut feature film, The Purple Onion, long before it was even completed. We knew we didn’t […]
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5 Questions For X/Y Writer/Director Ryan Piers Williams
An admission of infidelity — hers — sends a pair of twentysomething New Yorkers into separate rabbit holes of desire, regret and personal discovery in Ryan Piers Williams second feature, X/Y. The film is something of a family affair, as Williams and his wife, America Ferrera, star as the couple, with each supported on their La Ronde-ish journeys by a charismatic cast of supporting players, including Melonie Diaz, Dree Hemingway, Common and Amber Tamblyn. Intimacy, IRL and online; sexual fantasy vs. reality; the artist’s life vs. the corporate warrior — all these dichotomies are explored in a film that draws […]
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Red Giant Creates Universe and Updates Software Suite
At NAB Red Giant announced a wide array of updates and new effects across their various programs. A lot of the changes revolve around Supernova, an original framework they developed that enables them to rapidly create new effects that run quicker than before. This is the backbone of their new Universe plug-in suite, a collection of 50 effects, everything from lens flares to retro film looks. Universe is also experimenting with the subscription model, though not forcing anyone to commit. You can choose a recurring pricing option for $10 a month or $99 a year, or get a lifetime membership (essentially […]
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Joss Whedon Sells Directly to Fans Following Tribeca Premiere of In Your Eyes
Earlier this month, we ran an interview with Monica Peña, a first time filmmaker who capitalized on the festival premiere of Ectotherms by immediately selling the film on her website. Such a concept is spreading beyond no-budget land and into the distribution strategy of alterna-mogul Joss Whedon. Following last night’s world premiere of In Your Eyes at the Tribeca Film Festival, Whedon — the film’s writer/executive producer — announced that it was immediately available for rent on Vimeo on Demand. He did so not in person, but from the set of the latest Avengers installment, ensuring the tidbit’s viral-ability. Chances are, it’s working nicely. In Your Eyes is available […]
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5 Things I Learned about the Panasonic GH4 at NAB
I have been a big fan of Panasonic’s GH line since the GH2. When the GH3 was announced I was first in the cyber line for pre-orders and same deal when the GH4 went up. This time I opted to get the YAGH Interface Unit package. My thought process was I’d have a “real camera” setup that can handle XLR audio (I hate dealing with a second recorder and syncing audio), I could jam-sync the timecode on multicam shoots, and then I’d be set up to just rent a 4K recorder for high-end jobs that needed 10-bit 422 recording. I […]
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What to See from the Tribeca Film Festival Online
Screenings have just kicked off in Manhattan for the Tribeca Film Festival, but as always not all the films are showing in theaters–and there’s more available online this year than ever before. Here’s a quick guide to what you can see and how to see it. Streaming select titles: Four feature films and four shorts will be online after their initial theatrical screenings this week and next; they’ll also be eligible for an audience choice award with prize money totaling $15,000. All of Tribeca’s online material discussed below, including these eight films, is available at http://tribecafilm.com/online. The short films include: * Love in […]
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Tribeca: 5 Questions for Glass Chin Writer/Director Noah Buschel
“Boxing has always drawn dumb, confused macho guys like myself,” writes filmmaker Noah Buschel. “It’s cool, it’s tough, it’s naked, it’s true…. But the thing about boxing, as Norman Mailer pointed out, is that it’s just as sensitive as it is murderous. If you go to a boxing gym, and Floyd Mayweather’s not there, it is a remarkably quiet and tender place.” Buschel heads straight into that quiet and tender place with his latest, Glass Chin, premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival. Since he’s already written an essay for us about the film itself, we sent Buschel a set of […]
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“Let Some Air In!”: Nathan Silver on Directing Improvisation
I asked Nathan Silver to write a guest post on directing improvisation, largely because a spur of the moment slipup — in which one of his actors mistakenly entered a scene and decided to stay put — ended up reshaping the narrative of Soft in the Head, which opens today at Cinema Village. I wanted to know how he tacitly guides the actors without stifling them, how much preparation his outlines necessitate, and what sort of challenges the process presents in editing. He sent me the following, with the note that he “might be having a nervous breakdown.” Incidentally, it’s […]
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Spell of the Cat People
I was watching TV late at night, in a motel room. Having been on the highway all day, I just wanted to get the speeding landscape out of my face and eyes. I searched through the channels for something that had some gravity to it. Something that would pour molasses all over the spinning tires in my mind. Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People had just started. Within a minute, it had blasted the day away, and rolled me like a black-and-white wave. Soft, hypnotic, thunderous. The movie came out of the TV, went into my head and then down into my […]
