Hacking Arts, a two-day event to “explore the intersection of arts and entertainment, technology and entrepreneurship” was held this last weekend at MIT’s Media Lab. The first day consisted of panels and product demos, while the rest of the event was devoted to participants working together to come up with new ideas in various topic areas, from mobile to art education. The panel sessions of the first day had a strong tilt towards art distribution and finding and interacting with your audience in the connected world. The music panel, titled “Social Sound: Music Fans Get Involved,” featured Kristen Bender from […]
Elle Schneider, Creative Director at Digital Bolex, spoke about the project at this weekend’s Hacking Arts conference held at MIT’s Media Lab. The Digital Bolex project, the creation of a digital camera that is operated and styled like a 16mm camera, was funded through a Kickstarter Project. Held in March of 2012, the campaign raised twice the $100,000 goal and pre-sold 93 cameras. Schneider announced that they expect the camera will be available to order in six weeks, and they will ship the original orders even sooner. Schneider, who had an early beta version of the camera with her, talked […]
Gamechanger Films, a new for-profit film fund exclusively targeting narrative feature-length films directed by women, was announced today. The New York-based company was founded by Julie Parker Benello (Afternoon Delight, Pariah, Brooklyn Castle), Dan Cogan (Hell and Back Again, How to Survive a Plague, The Queen of Versailles), Geralyn Dreyfous (Born Into Brothels, The Invisible War, The Square) and Wendy Ettinger (Semper Fi: Always Faithful, The War Room, Eye of God), and will be led by producer Mynette Louie (Cold Comes the Night, California Solo, Children of Invention). Producer Mary Jane Skalski (Very Good Girls, Win Win, The Visitor) is […]
In the latest of our clips from Craft Truck‘s excellent interviews with cinematographers, Dean Cundey talks about the difference between how a particular scene in Back to the Future was shot in the mid-1980s and how it would be done now, neatly encapsulating the advances in film technology in the past three decades You can watch the full interview with Cundey here.
Elaine McMillion, one of Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces of Independent Film for 2013, has been keeping busy since launching her interactive doc Hollow, about life in the hard-hit county of McDowell in south-western West Virginia, in June at http://hollowdocumentary.com. It immediately earned praise and a sizeable audience; she’s since presented for events and organizations like StoryCode and Independent Film Week, and Hollow continues racking up the positive reviews. The project includes an html5 site with dozens of short videos, photographs, text, user-generated content on Instagram, and content such as videos produced by the film’s subjects, many of whom the Hollow […]
Both a selective crowdfunding site and curated streaming platform, Seed&Spark has proven itself a unique enclave for filmmakers and viewers since its inception in 2012. From October 1-3, the hybrid will fully realize its “Cinema” component with a three-part film program at The HUB LA. Screening a total of six films from the recently launched Conversation series, the festival calls upon S&S founder Emily Best, Sundance programmer Christine Davila, and Twitch Film editor Ben Umstead to bring their selections to a live format. Filmmaker spoke with Seed&Spark’s director of content, Amanda Trokan, about the unprecedented event, and bridging the gap between online and […]
When he was eight, Jean-Pierre Jeunet would marvel at 3D pictures on his View-Master. It was a popular toy where someone could see a sequence of stereoscopic images printed on a cardboard disc inserted into a handheld viewer. “It my first step into cinema,” the director of Amelie fondly recalled, “because I would adjust the frame in the viewer to change the order, and I’d imagine a new kind of film.” Little did Jeunet know that his beloved View-Master would lead to him to direct an entire film in 3D 52 years later. Jeunet was speaking about the pleasures — […]
Director and cinematographer Christina Voros nicely summed up the difference between the fashion industry and the film industry at the Tribeca Film Institute’s Fashion in Film event Friday: “Fashion is sort of antithetical to film. The fashion industry is all about making sure the seams don’t show, that every thread is in place. Documentary is about pulling on the threads until it unravels.” She was speaking of the process of filming her second documentary feature The Director, about Gucci Creative Director Frida Giannini, but the sentiment was reflected in films and discussions throughout the two-day event. At first blush the […]
Yesterday was the day that “equity crowdfunding” becomes a legal means to raise investor money. For the last 80 years, companies have been required to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or a state entity in order to publicly solicit investors and advertise the sale of securities. On April 5,2012, President Obama signed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, popularly known as the JOBS Act. Now, a year and a half later, it is taking effect. The federal bureaucracy grinds slowly. The first fundamental change in fundraising occurs because companies can now solicit “accredited investors,” those covered under […]
Think about it for a second: how do you, as a filmmaker, gauge your film’s impact? Is it the box office you generate through screenings? The number of Twitter followers you have? The amount of “fans” you have on Facebook? And what do you do with that information once you have it? The Harmony Institute believes these are critical keys for decision making not only for your current film but your future films as well. Deputy Director Debika Shome shared amazing insights in her “Blitz Wisdom” talk at the IFP Filmmaker Conference about how the Harmony Institute does their work, […]