Filmmaking
Filmmaking
-
FILM INDEPENDENT ANNOUNCES 2012 SPIRIT AWARD FILMMAKER GRANTS
Congratulations to Without writer/director Mark Jackson (one of Filmmaker‘s 2012 25 New Faces), producer Sophia Lin (Take Shelter), director Heather Courtney (Where Soldiers Come From) and directors Benjamin Murray and Alysa Nahmias (Unfinished Spaces) for winning Spirit Awards today at the event’s nominee brunch in Los Angeles. Jackson, Lin and Courtney received unrestricted grants of $25,000 from, respectively, Audi, Nokia and Piaget, while Murray and Nahmias received a $40,000 marketing and distribution grant that will go towards the release of their feature. (Note: I served on the jury for the Jameson grant.) The complete press release follows. LOS ANGELES (January […]
-
HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENTS FROM “PARIAH” DIRECTOR DEE REES
Focus Features has just uploaded three short videos about the making of Dee Rees’ Pariah, which continues to open around the country. Here are she and two of her actors talking about the homework assignments they received while on set.
-
THE CINEMA AND ECONO-DISASTER TOURISM OF GREECE
Financial writer (Snap Judgement), documentary film producer (The Burger and the King) and Athens Biennial artist David Adler just returned from Greece, and files a report on the Frieze blog. He opens, “‘Athens is the new Berlin.’ This hopeful phrase, constantly repeated by visitors to the 3rd Athens Biennale, and by the artists who have moved to Athens to take advantage of the cheap rents and cultural climate, may or may not be true. There are many contenders for the title – Buenos Aires, even Warsaw – but what is indisputable is that Athens is the leader in EU econ-disaster […]
-
CREATIVE CAPITAL ANNOUNCES 2012 FILM AND VIDEO GRANTEES
At a reception last night at the Ronald Feldman Gallery in New York, Creative Capital announced its 2012 Film & Video and Visual Arts grantees. Among the media artists are a number of names familiar to Filmmaker readers, including 25 New Face directors Cam Archer, Matt Porterfield and Yance Ford. Others who received grants include L.A.-based director Nina Menkes, veteran experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs, and Rooftop Films head Mark Elijah Rosenberg, who, as a director, will tell “a multimedia, fictional story of an astronaut heading to Mars alone on a one-way mission.” “Our grantees span artists from 27 years old […]
-
The Blue Velvet Project, #66
Second #3102, 51:42 The frame within the frame. Jeffrey, on his way out of Dorothy’s apartment, stops and retrieves from beneath the couch the framed black and white photo of Don and Donny that Dorothy had gazed at immediately after Frank’s call. A fury of angles and lines, rectangles within rectangles. The frozen image captures a moment in time, while what transpires on the screen (no matter how many years have passed since Blue Velvet was filmed) happens right now. Seymour Chatman, in Story and Discourse, writes about still time and moving time on the screen: The effect of pure […]
-
The Art of First Impressions: How to Cut a Movie Trailer
Stephen Garrett on crafting a winning trailer -
Sideways Author Rex Pickett on Success, Rejection and Sequels
In this episode of Brad Listi’s Other People Podcast, novelist Rex Pickett discusses the origins of his book Sideways, the basis for Alexander Payne’s hit movie. Pickett has written a sequel to Sideways called Vertical, and in the podcast he talks about why he’s self-published it. There’s a lot here about a writer’s take on the movie business, how success doesn’t protect you from rejection, and, uh, Pickett also has a few things to say about producer Michael London.
-
SUNDANCE TRAILER WATCH: “SHUT UP AND PLAY THE HITS”
This trailer for the LCD Soundsystem movie looks fantastic! The band’s amazing, the show was great, and now there’s this movie… I’m glad it exists. (Click on the headline above if you don’t see the video embed.)
-
RECAPPING THE 2012 CINEMA EYE HONORS
The backlash against the Academy’s recent changes to its nomination policies for documentary films contrasted with the casual atmosphere of last night’s Cinema Eye Honors. In an intimate theater at the Museum of the Moving Image, the pillars of the documentary community gathered to celebrate the breadth and diversity of their craft. In attendance were Frederick Wiseman, Al Maysles, Steve James, Alex Gibney, Michael Moore, Joe Berlinger, Bruce Sinofsky and many more. Founder and co-host AJ Schnack spoke of the Cinema Eyes evolution prior to the awards: “Some things about Cinema Eye are the same as they were that first time that we gathered […]
-
SXSW ANNOUNCES “CABIN IN THE WOODS” FOR OPENING NIGHT, TEASES FULL LINEUP
SXSW, has announced the first official titles from its 2012 film lineup, a list that includes the world premiere of Drew Goddard (Cloverfield) and Joss Whedon’s (The Avengers, Serenity) horror-comedy Cabin in the Woods, as well as a special preview screening of Lena Dunham’s new HBO series, Girls. Cabin in the Woods, which garnered a lot of buzz during a preview screening at Harry Knowles’ Butt-Numb-A-Thon this past December, will have its World Premiere as SXSW’s Opening Night film. Whedon will also be on hand at the festival for a panel discussion on Saturday, March 10. Check out the film’s […]
