Filmmaking
Filmmaking
-
Into the Woods: Director Michelangelo Frammartino Talks About His Mesmerizing Installation Work Alberi
Director Michelangelo Frammartino unveiled his latest project at Den Frie Center for Contemporary Art in Copenhagen in November. Alberi, his stunning 26-minute video installation, which first screened at MoMA P.S.1 last spring, was receiving its European premiere at CPH:DOX, a festival that awarded its top prize to his second feature, Le Quattro Volte, in 2010. Like that film, Alberi is a hybrid work that combines documentary and staged performance, but operates in the space between video installation and cinema. It describes a mysterious ritual from the southern region of the filmmaker’s native Italy that is well known but little understood. […]
-
Jake Gyllenhaal in Prisoners: The Shadow Knows
In Robert Bly’s examination of Jung’s concept of the shadow, Bly talks a lot about this thing called “the bag.” The bag is where, for the first 20 years of our lives, we hide the stuff we’re ashamed of. Or have been made to be ashamed of. Then we spend the rest of our lives trying to get those things out of the bag. Things like our emotions, our anger, our creativity, our vulnerability, our troublemaker, our defiance, our gut instinct, our spontaneous wildness. They’re in the bag a lot of the time. So, boys learn how to put their […]
-
Manohla Dargis to Indie Distributors: Be More Discriminating
In advance of Sundance, the unofficial birthplace of the annual independent film calendar, Manohla Dargis has something to ask of the attending distributors: “stop buying so many movies.” Or at least, stop offering so many theatrical deals. “It’s hard to see how American independent cinema can sustain itself if it continues to focus on consumption rather than curation,” she writes. “There are, bluntly, too many lackluster, forgettable and just plain bad movies pouring into theaters, distracting the entertainment media and, more important, overwhelming the audience.” Her claim comes from a kind-hearted place. She ventures that the wonderfully singular Computer Chess could […]
-
SXSW to World Premiere Veronica Mars, Jon Favreau’s Chef
The SXSW Film Conference and Festival has announced the first batch of premieres for its 2014 edition, including Jon Favreau’s Chef, the Veronica Mars movie, and acting-screenwriting ventures from Jeremy Sisto and Mark Duplass. Joining the aforementioned narrative titles are Doc of the Dead, which charts the evolution of the zombie genre; Leave the World Behind, a portrait of Swedish House Mafia; and Fox’s series remake Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey, as hosted by astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson. Said Janet Pierson of Chef, the opening night film, “Jon Favreau’s wonderfully entertaining return to independent filmmaking works beautifully as our 2014 Opening Night Film, with his sharp […]
-
Thom Powers Curates Distribution Advice for Filmmakers
Toronto International Film Festival and Stranger than Fiction programmer Thom Powers is well known for his curation of documentary film, but with the New Year he’s offering something more: documentary film distribution guidance. For filmmakers entering the festival circuit, his “Distribution Advice for 2014” is a must read. In a detailed intro, Powers discusses various distribution options, ranging from traditional to hybrid to DIY strategies. Then, he gathers specific advice from filmmakers, journalists, producers, publicists and sales agent. Below are three of those recommendations, and check out the entire post at the link to read many more. DAN COGAN (CO-FOUNDER, […]
-
Ted Hope Named CEO of Fandor
Fandor, the online streaming service, announced today that indie stalwart Ted Hope would make the transition from board advisor to CEO come January 30th. The appointment follows Hope’s resignation from his role as Executive Director of the San Francisco Film Society last October. In December, Hope penned a highly trafficked post on his blog about how he could no longer produce films for a living. The financial imperatives driving the current film production business, he said, would force him to choose quantity over quality. Those who were left wondering what his new day job would be now have their answer. […]
-
Kevin Pearce and Lucy Walker Talk The Crash Reel
I’ve been to many documentary screenings, and even to some attended by the films’ subjects. But seeing The Crash Reel with its subject, Kevin Pearce, present was one of the most riveting movie screening experiences I’ve ever had. If you haven’t read about or seen the movie, The Crash Reel follows champion snowboarder Kevin Pearce through a debilitating accident, his recovery and then his slow coming to grips with the fact that he can’t go back to competitive snowboarding. On the face of it, this may sound unappealing, but The Crash Reel is no 60 Minutes bedside weepy. Instead, it […]
-
Should Independent Films License Products like Hollywood?
While pitching Like Me at the Dogfish Accelerator Demo Day last month, Go Infect Films’ Jessalyn Abbott remarked that a complimentary clothing line would compound its release. I was — immediately and regrettably — skeptical. Of the substantial batch of independent films I seek out each year, not one in recent memory has touted more than a poster and the occasional t-shirt. I filed Go Infect’s marketing strategy away as “unusual” and “ambitious.” A couple days later, when the internet was astir with slack-jawed admiration for Her, I read that Spike Jonze’s longtime “collaborator,” Humberto Leon of Opening Ceremony, had created his […]
-
Cinematographer Gordon Willis Explains the Elegance of Simplicity
The simpler the better, or so says Gordon Willis, celebrated cinematographer of The Godfather, Manhattan and Annie Hall. Willis echoes Steve Jobs in his belief that simple outshines complex and stresses sticking only with the necessary in making choices. As he sees it, one natural window light can do much more than six artificial ones, and the bare bones of an idea often do the heavy lifting in communicating the story to an audience. The full Craft Truck interview with Willis can be viewed here.
-
The New York Times’ Year in Transmedia
As a tactile person with a Gen Y attention span, my preferred way of ingesting long form news is with a paper in hand. Make no mistake, I am prone to half-hearted cheating attempts: packed in a subway car, I’ll scroll through The New York Times app with one eye trained on the passing station, comprehending every other topic sentence. With the 24-hour news cycle and a tech-friendly public that is increasingly immune to putting up its feet and paging through a periodical front to back, The Times has found a way to fully utilize the electronic format, giving it […]
