Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Michel Gondry on Old-School Animation, His Trademark Whimsy, and Plumbing the Mind of Noam Chomsky for Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?
Two highly unique minds converge in Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?, the latest from whimsical visionary Michel Gondry, who aptly subtitles his film, “An Animated Conversation with Noam Chomsky.” In the works for four years, this self-explanatory project from the artist behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Dave Chapelle’s Block Party, and a veritable library of music videos is a charming and markedly low-tech doc that literally illustrates the insights of Chomsky, one of the greatest thinkers of our time. Ever-fascinated by the depths of the human brain, and ever-faithful in dressing his films with cartoon-like touches, […]
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Push Notifications for the People (and Super Fans): App.net’s Broadcast
If you own a smartphone, chances are you’re familiar with push notifications. Popularized by Apple’s iOS 3.0 edition in 2009, push technology utilizes open IP connections to forward notifications from third-party apps to your mobile interface. Formerly reserved for large-scale corporations — The New York Times, etc. — San Francisco-based App.net has created a free marketing channel called Broadcast that democratizes the process of push notification. App.net CEO Dalton Caldwell likens this application to “your own promotional arsenal” for users who already enjoy an active social media presence. News that may otherwise be buried in the barrage of tweets and […]
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“Directors These Days Really Have to Understand the Business of Film”: Producer Christine Vachon in Wroclaw
“I’ve been around so long that I’ve seen the ‘death’ of independent film at least three times” – Christine Vachon, Producing Masterclass Widely regarded as one of the key figures in American independent cinema, Christine Vachon is now well into her fourth decade of film production. Her first feature film as a producer was Todd Haynes’ corrosive, Jean Genet-inspired Poison (1991), which set the tone for the host of fearlessly confrontational films that followed, including Tom Kalin’s Swoon (1992) and Larry Clark’s Kids (1995). In 1996, alongside Pamela Koffler, Vachon co-founded the NYC-based production company Killer Films, which has been […]
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Independent Film and the Reshoot
If you ask me what’s the biggest difference between studio and independent productions, I wouldn’t answer the length of the shooting schedule or luxuriousness of the craft service. No, I’d say it’s the ability to do reshoots. While studio films can hone their stories through test screenings and additional photography, changing endings (Fatal Attraction) and even entire third acts (World War Z), too many independents wind up with depleted contingencies and unwilling investors when additional photography needs arise in post. Producer Rob Cowan wrote about reshoots today at Hollywood Journal, correctly regarding them not as signs of weakness but as […]
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Gravity‘s Supplemental Short Aningaaq Now Online
If you were desperate to know who was on the other end of Dr. Ryan Stone’s radio as she said her final goodbyes in Gravity, your prayers have been answered. Jonas Cuarón, Alfonso’s son and Gravity‘s co-writer, cajoled Warner Home Video into financing a companion piece to one of the heralded blockbuster’s many climatic segments, a seven-minute short called Aningaaq. After playing a handful of film festivals — including Telluride, where it preceded not the obvious choice, but John Curran’s Tracks — Aningaaq has found its way online, in conjunction with Warner Brothers’ announcement that it will be a Live Action Short submission for the 2014 Oscars. […]
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Must-Watch Music Video: Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone”
Credit Bob Dylan and a 48-year-old song for the best music video of the moment. In “Like a Rolling Stone,” Dylan and co. create a channel-hopping interactive experience in which no two viewings are the same. Click through 16 different channels to watch various TV presenters, reality-show folk, celebrities and, oh yeah, Dylan himself, lip-sync to the song. From the press release: Nearly a half-century later, a groundbreaking interactive project has been created for the song, allowing fans to experience the classic recording in unprecedented ways. Celebrities and reality stars are featured throughout the various channels including cameos by Drew […]
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Filmmaker Grace Lee and Activist Grace Lee Boggs on American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs
“I feel so sorry for people who are not living in Detroit,” says activist icon Grace Lee Boggs, as she stands before a dilapidated cityscape in the opening sequence of American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs. A Marxist and lifelong Hegel disciple, the Chinese-American Lee Boggs gained notoriety in the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, alongside her husband Jimmy Boggs, in the mid-20th Century. Today, she is still ardently devoted to her adopted hometown of more than half a century, galvanizing the local communities in her effort to revive the industrial wasteland that has become of Detroit. […]
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Writer/Producer/Actor Jim Piddock on Christopher Guest’s Family Tree
As a longtime writer for both big and small screens and a member of Christopher Guest’s regular comic ensemble, Jim Piddock was an ideal creative collaborator on Guest’s 2013 TV series, Family Tree, which recently came out on DVD through HBO. The show centers on Tom Chadwick (Chris O’Dowd), a newly unemployed and recently single Londoner who breaks out of his stagnant funk by researching his family’s genealogical roots, discovering a branch of relatives in the U.S. and ultimately traveling across the pond to meet his Stateside kin. Piddock co-wrote Family Tree with Guest and also produced and acted in […]
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Brides and Bankruptcy: Making an Independent Feature in Cyprus
The following is a guest post by writer/director Stelana Kiliris, who previously wrote about the pre-production stages on her film Committed. Picture it: a smooth beige 1958 Mercedes convertible parked in the dust; its plush red interior enveloped by layers and layers of white tulle attached to a bride, sitting next to a man in a dark blue suit. Look closer and you’ll see the sun beating down and ice packs tucked in every crevice while a make-up artist furiously dabs at the couple’s faces. The crew swirls around the car as they prepare for the final shot of the […]
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Remembering Syd Field, 1935 – 2013
“I don’t even really understand the second act,” a filmmaker said to me just last week. He obviously hadn’t read Syd Field’s Screenplay, which is nothing if not about act structure: the first, second and third acts, but also the inciting incident, pinch one, plot point one, midpoint, pinch two, plot point two and resolution. When I started reading scripts — both as a professional gig and as a producer — Field’s was the book to have on your shelf, and, setting aside Aristotle, was the one that ratified a storytelling paradigm that exists to this day. As a script […]
