Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Kristoffer Gansing on transmediale 2014
In 1988, VideoFilmFest launched as part of the Berlinale. It gradually evolved until it was rechristened the transmediale in 1998, and today it’s one of the premier festivals for film, art, video, and digital work. Kristoffer Gansing has been the festival’s artistic director since 2011, and for this year’s theme he’s selected the “afterglow,” an exploration of how media technologies and practices are turned into trash. As the festival’s website explains, “As media technologies have now become completely integrated into everyday life, they function similarly to natural resources, producing physical and immaterial waste products that get appropriated in such diverse contexts […]
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Sundance Trailer Watch: John Michael McDonagh’s Calvary
Yesterday, it was announced that Calvary, the new film from The Guard writer/director John Michael McDonagh, will make its world premiere at Sundance next month. Sooner than expected, the trailer for the movie has emerged, and it’s immediately apparent that this is a more somber and understated affair than The Guard, which was irreverent and caustic, much in the manner of the work of McDonagh’s older brother, Martin. Brendan Gleeson, also the star of The Guard, here plays a priest facing his last days in a small Irish town after being told by someone whose confession he is taking that […]
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Takeaways From Dogfish Accelerator’s Demo Day
Back in October, Filmmaker spoke with a few of the driving forces behind Dogfish Pictures’ Accelerator Program, which seeks to bring the start-up financing model to independent film production. I’m pleased to report that James Belfer and Company’s months of hard work culminated in a successful Demo Day at the Microsoft Technology Center in midtown Manhattan last Friday. For myself, and a few others in the audience who aren’t necessarily of the tech-ilk, it was our first brush with this sort of presentation marathon, where one or two representatives from each team take to the floor for with a Powerpoint pitch before […]
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Abnormal Frequencies: Sound Designing the Short Film Hum
When I made my first short film in 2011, the idea was to set a goal for myself and let that drive my process. The short ended up being Mr. Fitzpatrick, and my goal was simply to present a character and show a day in his life. That’s it. No story or anything complicated. I didn’t even want to get to know him very well–just get an impression. I’m pretty happy with the way the film came out, but the one thing people always comment on is its sound design. We shot the film completely MOS (with the FGV-PL7D and […]
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D.P. Phedon Papamichael Talks the B&W Imagery of Nebraska, Lighting Movie Stars and his Online Film School
Cinematographer Phedon Papamichael is finding a new audience of fans with his striking black-and-white camerawork in Nebraska, a father-and-son road trip starring Bruce Dern and Will Forte. With this third collaboration with director Alexander Payne, following Sideways and The Descendants, Papamichael is on a list of potential Oscar nominees. He was recently included in a Hollywood Reporter roundtable of five top cinematographers, a series that often portends year-end award winners. His other work includes James Mangold’s Walk the Line and Oliver Stone’s W. He just completed Monuments Men with George Clooney. Papamichael was born in Athens and studied photography and art […]
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Getting White Reindeer Off The Ground
Zach Clark’s White Reindeer is not your average Christmas tale. Flush with WASPy cheer, real estate agent Suzanne Barrington (the note-perfect Anna Margaret Hollyman) eagerly anticipates the holiday until her meteorologist husband Jeff is whacked in their suburban home. What follows is an earnest and surprising unravelling as Suzanne rides a second wave of grief upon the discovery of Jeff’s affair with a stripper. With a script both original and subversive, Clark and his producers Daryl Pittman and Melodie Sisk went out to finance White Reindeer as the debt crisis hit. Clark was kind enough to reflect upon the process […]
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What Do You Do When Your Funding Falls Through? PROXiMITY
What do you do when the funding for your short movie falls through? Make a different short movie! That’s what Ryan Connolly of Film Riot did after a large portion of the funding he was counting on for his big-budget short film project Outsiders fell through just days before shooting was to begin. In a similar situation most people would probably spend a week or so re-evaluating their life choices. But since they had the gear and the people had already flown in, Connolly decided instead to come up with, and shoot, a different short. The result is PROXiMITY, an […]
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Nymphomaniac Set for March and April US Release
The latest surprise twist in Nymphomaniac‘s marathon marketing campaign is not one of the visual variety. Well, not yet. Magnolia Pictures announced today its US theatrical and VOD release dates for Nymphomaniac: Part One and Nymphomaniac: Part Two. Forgoing the festival circuit, the first part of von Trier’s latest provocation will be available on demand March 6, 2014, and in theaters March 21, 2014, with Part Two released on VOD April 3, 2014, and theatrically, April 18, 2014. Nymphomaniac: Part One unfolds as Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård) discovers a beaten Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) in an alley way, and takes her into his home […]
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“I Can’t Hate Anyone Unless I Love Them:” Drew Tobia, Eleanore Pienta and Rachel Wolther on See You Next Tuesday
Once in a while, a film comes across your radar that plays so perfectly to your sensibilities, it seems someone handcrafted it with you in mind. These sorts of films are usually small, personal endeavors, that — preference-pending — are too niche for mass audiences, and struggle to find the complimentary festival or forum that will realize their loaded potential. Drew Tobia’s See You Next Tuesday is the lastest entry in this unjustly underground canon. A cult hit in the making if there ever was one, See You Next Tuesday concerns Mona, a pregnant, loudmouthed, lonesome and unhinged grocery store cashier, inhabited by the utterly uninhibited […]
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Visual Effects on a Budget – Don’t Fix It in Post
Visual effects supervisor Scott Squires appeared this week in an online webinar for Moviola.com entitled “Visual Effects on a Limited Budget.” His number one tip? – Don’t fix it in post. The presentation began with a look at the different roles in Visual Effects and the factors to consider when designing shots. Squires, who worked on movies such as The Mask and Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace, then spent some time stressing how important planning is, and how shooting it right the first time, rather than fixing it in post, will save you time and money. It’s particularly important to avoid […]
