Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Short Takes: The Role of The Short in Modern Filmmaking
Why make a short film? At Short Takes, a recent panel discussion co-presented by IFP and DCTV, the answers varied with each pass of the microphone. The participating panelists — Terence Nance, Dustin Guy Defa, Lauren Wolkstein, Ryan Koo, and Jeremiah Zagar — reflected upon prior efforts to offer a unique, holistic picture into the business and practice of short filmmaking. Koo, who recently revealed Amateur, a short prequel to his debut feature Manchild, said that he viewed the format as a calling card, a means to entice both the industry and a larger audience. Nance and Wolkstein, on the […]
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Indie Game: The Movie Filmmakers Announce New Special Edition
Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky, directors of Indie Game: The Movie, are not only skilled filmmakers but also very savvy businesspeople. They chose to self-distribute their film rather than sell themselves short by giving it away to a distributor, and did a brilliant job of connecting with their audience and maximizing the potential of their product. (You can read their evolved thinking on self-distribution in a Filmmaker article they penned earlier this year.) Now the pair say they have reached “the end of a life-changing, 3-year odyssey” of Indie Game with the just-announced the release of a Special Edition, which […]
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The POV Conversation: Stephen Maing and Lixin Fan on the Importance of Unpredictability
Last year, to celebrate POV’s 25th anniversary, Filmmaker organized a series of conversations between documentary directors whose work had been featured on the PBS non-fiction showcase. This year, we continue this series with a fascinating discussion between Stephen Maing — whose debut feature on Chinese citizen bloggers, High Tech, Low Life, is currently streaming for free on the POV website — with Lixin Fan, the Chinese filmmaker whose Last Train Home, an intimate portrait of a fractured family of migrant workers in China, won him great acclaim in 2009. In the third of this five-part discussion, the two filmmakers discuss how unforeseeable circumstances have contributed to their documentary films. […]
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“The Past is Never Past,” but the Faulkner/Midnight in Paris Lawsuit Is.
One of the most vexing and unanticipated problems facing independent filmmakers involves realizing that brief, seemingly incidental references — a song lyric, the quoting of a movie character, or referencing a line from a novel — are actually copyrighted materials requiring clearance. Yes, there is what’s known as Fair Use — a doctrine allowing selective quotation of copyrighted works. But Fair Use is most often used in documentary and less so in fiction works. But a recent court ruling involving a William Faulkner line quoted in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris offers hope to filmmakers. This problem of quote clearance […]
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Five Questions with Man from Reno Director Dave Boyle
Since his 2006 debut, director and multi-hyphenate Dave Boyle has arguably carved out the most unique niche in independent film. That film, Big Dreams Little Tokyo, and his subsequent pictures White on Rice (2009), Surrogate Valentine (2011), and Daylight Savings (2012) have featured a mix of Japanese and Japanese-American characters in polyglot films that combine quirky comedy with high-strung drama. The latter two films added a semi-documentary element as musician Goh Nakamura plays a fictionalized version of himself. Now with Man from Reno Boyle retains several of his signature traits but moves in the new direction of a thriller. The film […]
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Errol Morris Lets Loose on The Act of Killing Controversy
Banging away on Twitter, does Errol Morris have a point? Or does he just need another scotch and water? Friday night, respected filmmaker Errol Morris fired off two quick tweets. Morris and Werner Herzog are the executive producers of The Act of Killing, which had its New York theatrical opening on Friday. In Friday night’s tweets Morris seemed annoyed and confused — actually, pissed and baffled. The two tweets were posted at 10:51 and 10:53 (EST): errolmorris @errolmorris Tired of hearing people complain that “The Act of Killing” does not provide enough background, historical context, etc. errolmorris @errolmorris Hey, read a book. Wait, aren’t […]
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Sneak Preview of Bomb It 2 with Artist Stormie Mills
Here’s a little preview from Bomb It 2 from one of my favorite artists and a totally amazing person. It was such a pleasure to meet Stormie Mills in Perth, which is so far out of the way it’s kind of crazy. Stormie told me that Perth is actually one of the most remote cities in the world, especially from the US or Europe. I was able to meet him because I was invited to attend Perth to screen Bomb It and conduct a workshop for filmmakers at the Revelation Film Festival there. I was in Europe at the time, […]
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Will “Unbundling” Kill Cable?
Digital disruption is restructuring the media industries. New production, distribution and display technologies shook up publishing (including newspapers, books and magazines), records and home video/DVDs. The cable industry’s day of reckoning may be at hand. A series of disquieting developments in the cable industry have been accumulating. Over the last decade, basic subscribers have declined by nearly 16 percent, to 56.4 million in 2012 from 66.9 million in 2001. Consumer viewing habits are changing, with many either abandoning or supplementing their fixed TV set with new devices and multi-screen viewing. More and more households are turning to the Internet for […]
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Foreign Sales 101: What Independents Need to Know About Selling Films Abroad
This article originally appeared in our Summer, 2013 issue. With substantial revenue (sometimes well above 50 percent) coming from exploitation outside of a film’s home country, it is vital that producers know how to target and then structure deals with foreign sales agents. For those beginning to explore international distribution, here are some very basic ideas and concepts about the business of foreign sales to know going in. What is an international sales agent? In simplest terms, an international sales agent is the conduit to your film’s distribution outside of its country of origin. The sales agent will acquire a […]
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How Not to Make a Kickstarter Video
As some of you may know by now, I am running a Kickstarter campaign for my new film Bomb It 2, which is the follow up to my global graffiti and street art documentary Bomb It. I have consulted on a number of campaigns, but never run one of my own, and I wanted to experience the complete process for myself. I am now personally more obsessed with checking for new backers when I wake up (and every 10 minutes) but what I found to be one of the hardest things to do is to make my own crowdfunding appeal […]
