Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Five Questions with Let My People Go! Director Mikael Buch
“On a set I feel like the strongest person in the world,” says Mikael Buch, quickly adding, “In real life, things are far more complicated!” Buch’s new film, Let My People Go!, is his first full-length feature. But in directing and co-writing this frisky combination of sexual farce, romantic comedy, and family drama revolving around a young, gay, Jewish Frenchman named Ruben (Nicolas Maury) and his international misadventures, Buch had some stalwart support, including co-writer Christophe Honoré and actor Carmen Maura (of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown fame). “All these people gave me the confidence I needed,” says […]
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Romain Thomassin on Dailymotion’s Motionmaker Fund
With more than 106,000,000 unique monthly visitors and 2 billion views worldwide, Dailymotion is one of the leading video sharing sites in existence. They already offer 34 localized versions, in 16 different languages, and are steadfastly committed to providing an easy-to-use forum for high-quality and HD video to be shared online via their own users, independent content creators and premium partners. Dailymotion’s official squad of creators, known as “Motionmakers,” is free to join and grants access to benefits such as streaming in 1080p HD, 3D and live, participation in contests and festivals, priority positioning on the site and its search engine and […]
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Pulse: Shooting with the Canon C100, Part II
In Part Two of this interview with Patrick Moreau of StillMotion, Moreau discusses the settings used while filming the short film Pulse with the Canon C100, as well as the lenses and audio hardware they used. He also discusses intercutting footage from the Canon C100 with other cameras. See also: Pulse: Shooting with the Canon C100 Part One Filmmaker: For this project you were recording to AVCHD? Moreau: Yes. We used AVCHD in this situation because we wanted it to be as natural as possible, which is possible with this small footprint. We did an AT&T campaign for the Olympics […]
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Louisiana Film Prize Announces 2013 Competition
After an overwhelmingly successful inaugural year, Executive Director Gregory Kallenberg announced that the second annual Louisiana Film Prize filmmaking competition will launch today, complete with a $50,000 cash prize to be awarded to the Grand Prize Winner. Building on last year’s success, this year’s festival will also increase the number of “Founder’s Circle” Grants from 3 to 5 recipients. These grants, of $3000, are awarded by the judges’ panel during the festival weekend and are meant to enable filmmakers to offset the future costs of creating their submissions for the following year’s festival. The 2013 Louisiana Film Prize jury, a combination of […]
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Three Questions for Jonathan Demme
Academy Award-winning director Jonathan Demme has made Hollywood spectacles (The Silence of the Lambs, The Manchurian Candidate), eccentric indies (Rachel Getting Married, Something Wild), timeless rock docs (Stop Making Sense, Neil Young Journeys) and other unclassifiable delights. At the 12th annual Festival International du Film de Marrakech, Demme’s filmmaking legacy was honored with both a formal tribute, and an invite to give a “masterclass” to an enraptured Moroccan audience. Filmmaker sat down with Demme to discuss his iconoclastic career. Filmmaker: For decades, you’ve been slinking between narratives and documentaries. What interests you more? Demme: I’ve always followed my enthusiasm. If […]
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Five Tips for Approaching Festival Press
For much longer than I care to think about I’ve been hitting the road and traveling the friendly skies far and wide, covering film festivals both nationally and internationally. And yet it never ceases to amaze me how often paid publicists and filmmaker-publicists shoot themselves in the proverbial foot when it comes to obtaining coverage for their indie endeavors. So with Sundance nearly upon us, I thought it might be helpful (and in my case, cathartic) to go over a few dos – and two definite don’ts – when it comes to working the PR machine. DO everything in your […]
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Five Questions for Sebastien’s Deborah Twiss
New York-based Deborah Twiss burst on the scene as the co-writer and star of the 1997 thriller, A Gun for Jennifer. The film achieved cult success in the U.S. and abroad, and since then Twiss has built a diverse career by juggling multiple hats. For Eric Schaeffer’s After Fall, Winter, she co-produced and acted. For School of Rock: Zombie Etiquette, she starred and wrote. She wrote and directed her own feature, In Between, in 2005, and she also regularly appears in both mainstream movies (Kick-Ass) and television (Law and Order). Now she’s producing and wrote the screenplay for a psychological […]
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Five Questions with Joshua Tree, 1951: A Portrait of James Dean Writer/Director Matthew Mishory
What began as a short film, Joshua Tree 1951: A Portrait of James Dean, became a feature film almost by the insistence of social media. Director/writer Matthew Mishory says the initial shoot for the film took place in Joshua Tree, California, over a few days in 2010. When he returned to Los Angeles, he edited a trailer and posted it online, not thinking much of what would happen. Almost immediately the trailer went viral and expectation was that it was going to be a feature film. “Our production team got together and decided, well, we really ought to be making […]
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The Up Films: The Speed of Life
“If one were to watch all of them, god forbid at one sitting, but over a period of time, how different they’d all be…” Michael Apted on the Up Series, from the director commentary of 42 Up. It begins in grainy black and white. A rambunctious boy runs in front of a brick wall, another walks through the foggy, rainy English countryside, three girls in a playground descend a slide side by side by side toward the camera. “In 1964,” a buttery, avuncular English voice-over begins, “Granada Television brought together a group of seven year olds, from all over the […]
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Creative Code
Developing an understanding of code is a valuable skill. In fact its now a 21st century storytelling reality. While it’s not critical for you to rush off and learn how to code, it wouldn’t hurt to become more familiar with the terminology, process and realities of producing digital / interactive projects. As filmmakers expand their work beyond a single screen new roles such as creative technologists are emerging to bridge the gap between tech and story. The role has been adapted within ad agencies, interactive firms and media companies as a way to plan and execute digital strategies. At the […]
