Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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TRIBECA CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK #2: NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH
And like that it was gone. Funny thing about film festivals — no one seems to really miss them when they’re over, although within the provisional community that pops up during such events, no one seems to be able to talk about much else (except what they’d rather be doing). So it was with the 11th Tribeca Film Festival, which came to a close on Sunday. Even at the party for The Fourth Dimension, perhaps the most undeniably hip film in the selection (Vice! Grolsch!), the mood was sort of dutiful. As for the actual film, I, like many, left after the Harmony […]
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LA FILM FESTIVAL FULL LINE-UP ANNOUNCED
The opening night movie of the Los Angeles Film Festival — Woody Allen’s To Rome with Love — was announced three weeks ago (along with screenings of Sundance winners Middle of Nowhere and Beasts of the Southern Wild), but today the rest of the line-up was unveiled, with the headline news being that Steven Soderbergh’s male stripper romp, Magic Mike, starring Channing Tatum and Matthew McConaughey, will close out the June fest. In the narrative competition, there are notable entries from Cory McAbee (The American Astronaut), Jared Moshé (a familiar name as a producer, making his first film as director), […]
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JEFF DESOM’S AWESOME “REAR WINDOW” REMIX
Over the weekend, I stumbled across Luxembourg-based filmmaker Jeff Desom’s incredible Rear Window timelapse remix, which is shortlisted for the upcoming Vimeo Awards (although it just got pulled from Vimeo, presumably because of rights issues.) However, for the time being, it’s still on YouTube, and I’ve embedded it below for your enjoyment. Desom’s remix is not only technically brilliant, but also winningly playful; part of its genius is that Desom shows you how he’s constructing the world seen from James Stewart’s window in Rear Window before he begins the action. Here’s an extract from an interview with Desom on One […]
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Using R/C Helicopters to Fly Your Camera: Part Two
In this second part of an interview with Eric Austin of HeliVideo, Eric talks about camera control, future cameras, and the most amazing sequence he’s shot so far: What camera control are you doing remotely? We have remote record-on, off from the ground, and we can also punch-in. The lens we are currently using on the Sony is actually the kit lens, usually the 18 to 55. Are you using that because of the image stabilization? Yes, in part. The gimbal is stabilized, and with the extra little stabilization in the lens it just takes out the little nicks […]
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Story Hack, Beta Part 4
(You can read part one, two, and three.) The hackathon came to an exciting conclusion yesterday with presentations from all seven teams and a brief awards ceremony. I was too exhausted to write about it last night, an indication that the 34-hour event had been a success. Last weekend my wife ran in a 200-mile Ragnar relay race, and it occurred to me more than once that hackathons are the tech/transmedia equivalent. Hacking had begun just after 10 a.m. Saturday morning and continued nonstop until 3:30 p.m. Sunday. My own team’s final hours were fueled with adrenaline more than caffeine. […]
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FOUR TRIBECA DOCS: FROM ZEN TO MADNESS TO SEXY
At 85, Tony Bennett looks and sounds great. In The Zen of Bennett, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and will soon appear on Netflix, Bennett relies on a single word, repeated over and over throughout the documentary, to describe his life philosophy. That word is “quality.” For the clothes he wears, for the songs he sings, for the people who are his friends, for everything, quality is his guiding principle. Conversely, the elderly singer with the smoothest pipes in the business, disparages cheap songs, crude and outlandish behavior, and anger. “Everything you do should be done with love, […]
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The Blue Velvet Project, #108
Second #5076, #84:36 The car has stopped. Jeffrey and Frank and his gang are outside. Dorothy is going nuts inside the car, pleading for Frank not to hurt Jeffrey. Franks orders “In Dreams” to be played. One of the women from Ben’s apartment who’s come along for the ride, climbs on top of Frank’s black Charger and dances on the roof. In a few seconds, Frank will say to Jeffrey: Don’t be a good neighbor to her [Dorothy]. I’ll send you a love letter straight from my heart fucker! You know what a love letter is? It’s a bullet from […]
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Using R/C Helicopters To Fly Your Camera : Part 1
Eric Austin of HeliVideo has been flying RC aircraft and helicopters for about ten years, but it was two years ago that he first put a DSLR camera on a helicopter and started shooting aerial footage. Two years on and his company is shooting material for the Discovery Channel, ABC and others, primarily using the Sony NEX-FS100. I spoke to Eric recently about how he got into the business, and what’s involved in using RC helicopters. The first half of the interview covers his beginning, the cameras he’s been using, and operating considerations. The second half of the interview covers […]
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Story Hack: Beta, Part 3
(Read parts one and two.) I’m sitting deep inside the bowels of the Elinor Bunin Monroe Film Center on West 65th Street. The Story Hack got off to a friendly start around 10:00 this morning with an orientation by Aina Abiodun, Mike Knowlton, and Film Society of Lincoln Center Executive Director Rose Kuo. We made sure everyone was on the same page and were told our final wild card, the Emily Dickinson quote “Fortune befriends the bold,” which has to be included in every hack. Aina’s opening thoughts also laid down the gauntlet when she said that our work in these […]
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ANDREW DOSUNMU TALKS THE BEAUTY OF “RESTLESS CITY”
Andrew Dosunmu’s debut fiction feature, Restless City (currently in release from AFFRM in New York, L.A. and Atlanta), is perhaps the most ravishing film you’ll see on a movie screen right now. An immigrant crime drama set along Canal Street about a Senagalese motorcycle messenger, a local crime boss, and the beautiful woman that comes between them, the film combines the sensitive eye of Dosunmu, a fashion photographer and music video director, with the masterful cinematography of Bradford Young. The result is a film that reimagines our urban landscape in bold, fresh ways. I interviewed Dosunmu for the current issue […]
