During the writing of this article, Ray Bradbury, one of the great founding fathers of sci-fi dystopia, passed away. With his seminal book, Fahrenheit 451 (1953), Bradbury gained recognition as an important figure not only in the science fiction community but the literary world in general. Recently, The New Yorker published a touching essay by the author in which he shared the origin of his love for science fiction. It is a beautiful ode to childhood and the discovery of one’s true passion. The essay will prove to future generations that, even in his last days, Bradbury’s ability to move […]
Filmmaker Paola Mendoza (Entre Nos, and one of our 25 New Faces) just forwarded this video she directed with filmmaker Topaz Adizes for FilmAid. It’s the organization’s first video, in support of World Refugee Day on June 20, and the music is The Joy Formidable’s “A Heavy Abacus.” While volunteering as Visiting Teaching Artists for FilmAid, Mendoza and Adizes shot this piece featuring Sudanese refugees in the Kakuma refugee camp in Northern Kenya. It was shot with a Canon 7D using two bounce boards and an iPhone as a monitor for the kids to lip sync to. For more information […]
Last night I moderated an IFP panel at DCTV, co-sponsored by the New York Television Festival, on transitioning from film to TV. It consisted of two TV execs — Colleen Conway (VP of Reality and Alternative Programming, Lifetime Networks) and Erin Keating (Director of Development & Production, IFC TV) — and one filmmaker, Alrick Brown. Filmmaker readers will be familiar with Brown as he was one of our 2011 25 New Faces and won an Audience Award at Sundance for his debut feature, Kinyarwanda. Brown recently broke into television by directing an episode of the upcoming ABC documentary crime series, […]
A frame from between posts 120 and 121. By the 1830s, he [Henry Langdon Childe] had developed and perfected the [magic lantern] technique of ‘dissolving views,’ in which one picture faded out as the next one faded in. The images were aligned on the screen and the light remained a constant intensity, creating a smooth, gradual transition. This permitted a wide variety of effects that had not previously been possible. (From The Emergence of Cinema, by Charles Musser, University of California Press, 1990.) A dissolve is the superimposition of a fade-out onto a fade-in, achieved by reversing and them re-filming […]
Last week I posted my interview with Aaron Hillis in which the Brooklyn-based curator and critic announced his purchase of Video Free Brooklyn, a Cobble Hill video rental store. In the interview he spoke of the fundraising campaign he needs to do to make the store viable again… and here it is. Check out the well-choreographed video and also the rewards he’s offering to his Indiegogo supporters. There are some hefty offerings here, including the entire Oscilloscope catalog and dinner with director Robert Downey, Sr., a private screening with actor David Cross, and Bobcat Goldthwait performing stand-up in your living […]
New York City writer/director Kevin Barker’s Last Kind Words – which gets its first hometown screening June 8 and 10 as part of the Brooklyn Film Festival – is a supernatural thriller with a Southern Gothic setting, starring Deadwood’s Brad Dourif, Spencer Daniels (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), and Sarah Steele (Spanglish). Barker has a parallel career as a musician, having worked with Devendra Banhart, Antony & The Johnsons, and Joanna Newsom, in addition to recording his own music. Ghosts, violence, and murky atmosphere abound in the multi-talented Brooklynite’s film, in which music unsurprisingly plays a key role. Filmmaker: […]
Actor/director Brady Corbet directed this great video for “Man on Fire,” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. It was shot by Jody Lee Lipes, d.p. of Tiny Furniture and whose own dance film is N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz. Check it out below.
Jamie Stuart, well known to Filmmaker readers for all the videos he’s shot for the site over the years, was commissioned to shoot the intros and promos for the New York City Made in New York Awards, held at Gracie Mansion last night. Here’s his intro spot featuring all the recipients, including Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep.
Over at Turnstyle, micro-budget filmmaker Lucas McNelly has a chat with actor-turned-director Matthew Lillard about Fat Kid Rules the World, which had its world premiere at Sundance this past January. Lillard is currently running a Kickstarter push to self-distribute the film, and is aiming to raise $150,000 for this purpose. To my mind, the truly successful Kickstarter campaigns are those that approach the task of raising their target funds by using their creativity and finding innovative ways of reaching potential funders — and then engaging them. With Lillard’s campaign, he was greatly helped by a three-hour “AMA” session on Reddit, […]
Second #5687, 94:47 Jeffrey approaches Sandy’s house, to pick her up for a date. He wears a black shirt and a white tie. Neither he nor the audience, at this point, know the meaning of the police car. The lens flare cuts the screen in half horizontally. In the fantasy, science fiction dimension of the film, the blue light is a laser beam, aimed at Jeffrey. The car is Detective Gordon’s, the Man in Yellow. He will enter the house, and will spook Jeffrey. In response, Detective Williams will take him by the shoulders and tell him: “Easy does it, […]