Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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BENNETT MILLER, RY RUSSO-YOUNG, JONATHAN AMES TO APPEAR AT IFP’S “SCRIPT TO SCREEN”
The IFP’s popular conference for writers and writer/directors, Script to Screen, returns to the 92nd St. Y Tribeca on Saturday, March 17 with a program that promises to mix practical advice with freewheeling programs intended to generate creative sparks. The day’s program features a keynote presentation by Bennett Miller, the Oscar-nominated director of Moneyball and Capote, and a Screenwriter’s Roundtable featuring up-and-coming auteurs Ry Russo-Young (Nobody Walks), Leslye Headland (Bachelorette), Madeline Olnek (Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same) and Liza Johnson (Return). As a promising change of pace from traditional panels, Script to Screen also features a pair of interactive […]
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WATCH: MUSICIAN PETER BRODERICK RELEASES NEW VIDEO EP
Peter Broderick’s http://www.itstartshear.com is as sprawling, heartfelt, and lovingly-rendered a collection of songs as you’re likely to hear this year; sixty-five minutes of controlled chaos running the gamut between bombastic and hushed, often times within the same track. And no, you didn’t read that wrong, Broderick, a 25-year old classically trained multi-instrumentalist living in Berlin (and definitely not the distribution guru who shares his name), has indeed titled his new record after a web domain. In the album’s press materials, Broderick explains his reasoning for this title, arguing: “http://www.itstartshear.com serves the music well by automatically becoming a link any time […]
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David Doernberg, 1967 – 2012
Production designer David Doernberg, who brought a sensitive, finely crafted and observant touch to many excellent independent films, died in New York on Friday after a battle with cancer. Doernberg began his career in the late ’80s/early ’90s working on music videos for bands like Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo and Superchunk. He quickly moved into independent features as a propmaster for films by Hal Hartley (Amateur), Daisy von Scherler Mayer (Party Girl) and Eric Schaeffer (If Lucy Fell). Soon after he became a production designer, bookending his career with films by Kelly Reichardt. He designed her 1994 debut film, […]
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The Blue Velvet Project, #86
Second #4042, 67:22 In a 1964 interview Orson Welles talked about the relationship between the visual and the spoken word in film. He said that I couldn’t arrive at [the visual] without the solidity of the word taken as a basic for constructing the images. What happens is that when the visual components are shot the words are obscured. The most classical example is Lady from Shanghai. The scene in the aquarium was so gripping visually that no one heard what was being said. And what was said was, for all that, the marrow of the film. Could Lady from […]
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Ten Lessons on Filmmaking From Persepolis Director Marjane Satrapi
Director Marjane Satrapi’s freshman effort Persepolis had all the success a first film could dream of having. The animated coming-of-age tale set in Iran, directed by Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, earned the 2007 Jury Prize at Cannes, as well two César awards and an Oscar nomination. It’s a tough act to follow, but the graphic novelists turned filmmakers are back with a worthy live action film Chicken with Plums, forthcoming this summer from Sony Pictures Classics. Add it to today’s rich catalogue of films helping change audience perceptions about Iran. Alongside this year’s Academy Award winner The Separation, other directors are […]
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TRUE/FALSE 2012, PART ONE
Film festivals encourage connecting dots that don’t necessarily exist, a logical by-product of seeing four films a day. In covering this year’s installment of Columbia, Missouri’s True/False Film Festival (a lovely documentary festival whose actual atmosphere I’ll discuss in the next post), I’d like to accordingly divide the films into two broad categories. In the second post, I’ll talk about (very loosely/speciously categorized) personal, dewy stories of love; in this initial dispatch, I’d like to discuss films which look at lives regulated by top-down political decisions and climates. The most obvious example is Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s staggeringly well-controlled Abendland (“evening land”), […]
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Una Noche at the Berlinale
Two weeks ago I was on the phone to a lab in Canada, who were holding our film, telling them that 6 lab rolls of Una Noche were missing. The movie was supposed to premiere in Berlin in a matter of days. I proceeded to go through every frame of footage in the NYC lab double-checking to see if the shots were there. They were not. I did not tell anybody. I did not want to believe it myself. When the colorist, Martin, told me that we might have to use black slates with “missing shot” written on them, my breathing spontaneously […]
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The Blue Velvet Project, #85
Second #3995, 66:35 1. Jeffrey, just after the kiss with Sandy, is on his way up the dark, industrially-vibed staircase to Dorothy’s apartment. He has had his chaste kiss; new he wants more. He is hungry for Dorothy, who dispenses with shy-girl playfulness and gives Jeffrey the Real Thing. 2. The blackness of the frame. The amount of screen space dedicated to the experience of no visible light. There is light, of course–just enough–but Jeffrey travels in these moments mostly through the dark. 3. In He Died with His Eyes Open, the first of Derek Raymond’s British crime noir Factory […]
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An Interview with Nick Flynn About Being Flynn
As a child growing up in Scituate, Massachusetts, Nick Flynn (pictured here at left and below with director Paul Weitz) was often left to explore on his own, and he got into varying degrees of trouble. Flynn’s parents were divorced and he had no contact with his father, living instead with his mother, who worked in a bakery. She remarried to a 21-year-old Viet Nam vet, and, after their divorce, Flynn wound up living with her and a new boyfriend — a member of one of the largest drug smuggling rings in New England. Around the age of 18 Flynn […]
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MARCH 2012 VOD TITLES
Filmmaker has launched the March edition of its curated monthly list of notable VOD titles. Highlights include Dee Rees’ stunning debut Pariah, a recent winner at the Gotham Awards and Independent Spirit Awards, David Cronenberg’s psychological drama A Dangerous Method, Alexander Payne’s Oscar winning dramedy The Descendants, and Pedro Almodovar’s foray into body-horror The Skin I Live In. For titles from previous months, be sure to check out our VOD Calendar homepage.
