Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Delay in Crowdfunding Rules Stalls Independent Film Investment Options
The Jumpstart our Small Business Startups Act (JOBS Act), passed by Congress earlier this year, promised new investment opportunities for filmmakers. For the first time, entrepreneurs of all stripes could raise equity financing — not just donations — via crowdfunding sites like Indiegogo. The law was signed by President Obama on April 5, and the SEC was given 270 days to draft the regulations required for its implementation. But, as Robb Mandelbaum in the New York Times reports today, that deadline is likely to be missed, and some believe it won’t be until 2014 before a filmmaker can sell an […]
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Going on a Date with the Audience
Something that constantly wins me over is when a movie doesn’t try too hard to thrust its narrative and/or message in my face. We all have seen films that announce, “Here is what the film means! Here is what matters to our protagonist!” in bold-faced, 48-point-type that gauchely screeches across the screen. An example we can all relate to is Paul Haggis’ Crash, which informs us, just in case we didn’t know, that a) RACISM IS BAD; b) some people who seem to be racists aren’t totally terrible; and c) some people who don’t seem to be racist may actually […]
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The Pact: Miguel Gomes on Cinema and Tabu
Part realism and part fantasy, half 35mm and half 16mm, part post-colonial and part colonial, half a swooning love story and half a clear-eyed political assessment, Miguel Gomes’s Tabu functions, as he puts it in this interview, within a structure of oppositions. Simultaneously a rebuke – and vindication – of the concept that “the personal is the political,” Tabu is a carefully constructed film in two halves, each of which comments upon the absences articulated in the other. We start in present-day Portugal, with Pilar (Teresa Madruga), a middle-aged woman who works for an unidentified lefty non-profit. Pilar is of […]
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Our Top 12 Posts of 2012 (or, the Tyranny of the Listicle)
In 2012 we relaunched our website with the new design by Area 17 you’re staring at now, created an iPad edition and dramatically upped the quantity of our web content. A number of these are still works-in-progress; the site will see continued improvements and tweaks; the iPad edition will be enhanced each issue with original video content; and, by Spring all print subscribers should receive the iPad edition free. So, as we march into 2013, we take our annual look back at what — at least from the POV of Google Analytics — stood out on the site these past […]
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Adam Cook’s Ten Best Films of 2012
Leading up to Filmmaker‘s own collective “Ten Best” — always a daunting proposition for us because our staff is skipping the movies in the theaters in order to concentrate on what’s out next year for our Winter issue, which goes to press this week — we are publishing individual entries from our contributors. Adam Cook has contributed festival coverage to the site and print magazine this year and also contributes to Mubi. His favorites are below. – SM In a year when we lost Tony Scott, celebrating the best in cinema is bittersweet — behind every joyous cinematic experience lies […]
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Cameras: 2012 Year In Review
It’s the end of the year and everyone’s doing year-end lists, so why not me? Here’s my top ten camera news and developments in 2012: 1. The end of film Film’s been having a tough time of it, but did anyone in 2011 think that 2012 would be the year that film would roll over and die? This was the year that Kodak went bankrupt, Fuji announced they would cease production of motion picture film, and the major film companies announced the timetable for moving toward 100% digital distribution. It was also the year that a James Bond movie was […]
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Immersive Storytelling for The Lost Children
My feature film The Lost Children will have its New York City premiere with the Film Society of Lincoln Center in January, 2013. The premiere will not be a film screening alone. It is presented by Convergence: Film Society of Lincoln Center, which is an arm of the FSLC devoted to immersive and transmedia storytelling. Like many organizations in New York City, FSLC is reaching out and exploring new storytelling methods. The 50th anniversary of the NYFF included its first ever series of panels on transmedia. This year, the Tribeca FF is accepting basically any type of project. And the […]
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Tom DiCillo Remembers Howard Brookner and Burroughs
One of the projects currently up on our curated Kickstarter page is a restoration of Howard Brookner’s documentary, Burroughs, on the legendary Naked Lunch novelist. Brookner died of AIDS in the ’80s, with this and the feature Bloodhounds of Broadway (which costarred Madonna) to his credit. Brookner was a great director poised to have an exciting career, and now his nephew Aaron Brookner is raising funds on Kickstarter to restore the original Burroughs film as well as 300 hours of additional archival material discovered in Burroughs’ NYC home, The Bunker. The team behind this restoration submitted to Filmmaker the following […]
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50 States, 50 Gay Movies
The last half of my 20s and the first half of my 30s were spent in Los Angeles working in mainstream television (That 70s Show) and film (Jesus People). I never made much money, but I did get to live out my dreams of visiting Kathy Griffin’s house, serving crumpets to my favorite comedic actress, Lisa Kudrow, and brushing my leg up against my favorite dramatic actress, Holly Hunter. In the mid-90s, I took for granted the fact that gay characters were becoming well represented on television. After all, my favorite TV shows were thirtysomething and My So-Called Life and […]
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The Sopranos’ David Chase Makes Film Debut with Not Fade Away
David Chase loves the Stones. Anyone who watched his hit series, The Sopranos, and heard the soundtrack will know. Nor will they be be surprised that his feature film debut, Not Fade Away, is about a bunch of suburban kids from New Jersey who pick up guitars and grow their hair after they see The Rolling Stones on TV in 1964. “It’s not autobiographical,” Chase insisted at a recent preview in Toronto. “The events didn’t play out as they happened in this movie.” In fact, both Chase and his protagonist Douglas (John Magaro) came of age in suburban New Jersey […]
