Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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KIDS WITH SUPERPOWERS IN RETRO NEW M83 MUSIC VIDEO
French electro-pop innovator M83 (AKA Anthony Gonzalez) might still be finishing his victory lap in celebration of today’s 9.1 Best New Music review over at Pitchfork, but he’s found time to post a great music video for “Midnight City”, the lead single from his mammoth new double album, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming. Much like the album itself, the Midnight City video is colored in a dream-like retro sheen. Directed by Fleur & Manu, it plays like the opening to a lost 70s Spielberg film, as a group of super-powered kids break out of school and run-amok in the woods. It’s […]
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TIM SUTTON’S “PAVILION” GETS A GORGEOUS NEW WEBSITE
Tim Sutton’s upcoming Pavilion is a beautiful debut, a collage of subdued, hypnotic moments that combine to capture the aching aimlessness of youth. And now the film has a similarly stunning website. Designed by Caspar Newbolt of Version Industries, the site overlays images and GIFs on each page to bring many of the film’s visually striking moments to life. This lovely GIF, for instance, loops on the homepage: Over at the IFP website , Newbolt blogs about developing the Pavilion website, as well as the film’s posters. He discusses how watching the film inspired and informed his designs: “For the […]
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YORGOS LANTHIMOS’ “ALPS” GOES TO KINO LORBER
Kino Lorber has acquired U.S. rights to Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos‘ Alps, the follow-up to his Oscar-nominated cult hit Dogtooth. According to indieWIRE, the film will be released in the spring of 2012. Kino also released Dogtooth in the States. The fourth feature by Lathimos, Alps follows an unusual group who offers grieving family members the opportunity to have their troupe reenact and continue the lives of deceased loved ones. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival, where it won Best Screenplay, and the Toronto International Film Festival. It will screen next at AFI Fest in L.A. If we […]
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TODD SKLAR BEGINS PRODUCTION ON HIS NEW FILM “AWFUL NICE”
For our Fall 2008 issue we highlighted Missouri filmmaker Todd Sklar, who embarked on a DIY road trip with his film Box Elder and three others, screening at arthouses and colleges throughout the midwest. Sklar is now in production on his next feature, Awful Nice, through his Range Life Entertainment company. Shot in Branson, Missouri, the film follows estranged brothers Jim (James Pumphrey) and Dave (Alex Rennie) as they return to Branson to renovate the vacation home that their recently deceased father left them. Sklar co-wrote the script with Rennie. Shooting begins in Branson next week and will end in […]
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The Blue Velvet Project, #30
Second #1410, 23:20 The sound. A low hum, like the over-filtered wail of a distant train or a collapsing carnival from some fevered dream. Within a few seconds of this shot that sound creeps into the film, and by the time the Yellow Man knocks at the door (roughly eight seconds after this frame) it will feel as if the sound is seeping out from the architecture of the room itself. Dorothy, in her red dress, pretends to attend to her fingernails, a sure sign that she already desires Jeffrey. The pink, plush, un-patterned carpeting. The lone chair, facing forward, […]
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Week Five at the Edit Center
Over the weekend we have all watched the new documentary: 6 Days to Air, about the making of South Park, in preparation for Chad Beck and Brett Granato, who edited the film, to come talk to us. Before they visit we hear a lecture on how to organize documentary footage. Documentary footage carries with it different challenges than narrative footage does; mainly, one usually has considerably more footage on a doc than on a feature — and no script. Beck and Granato are cutting just down the hall, so it’s a short walk for them to shuffle over to find […]
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THE POST-CINEMATIC CINEMA OF THE “PARANORMAL ACTIVITY” MOVIES
In his “Six Asides on Paranormal Activity,” published here at Filmmaker, Nicholas Rombes placed the Paranormal Activity films (particularly Paranormal Activity 2) within the realm of avant-garde cinema, even developing what he termed “the Fixed Camera Manifesto” to delineate the strategy of the latter film. Now, Rombes has elaborated upon his ideas as part of a group discussion about “the post-cinematic” as it relates to these films over at La Furia Umana. Also participating are Julia Leyda, Steven Shaviro, and Therese Grisham. From Rombes: In the Paranormal films, it’s not the house or the characters who are haunted, but the […]
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CINEREACH ANNOUNCES SUMMER 2011 GRANT RECIPIENTS
This week Cinereach announced $350,000 in grant funding going towards 17 documentary, fiction and hybrid projects. Ten projects are receiving Cinereach support for the first time, while seven are receiving additional funds. Over 1,000 applications were received from filmmakers hailing from over 70 countries. The recipients, who include one Filmmaker 25 New Face (Rebecca Richman Cohen), are below. For more information on Cinereach, visit their site. Call Me Kuchu Dir. Katherine Fairfax Wright & Malika Zouhali-Worrall | Uganda | Nonfiction | In Post-Production As state-sanctioned homophobia reaches new heights in Uganda, David Kato, the country’s first openly gay man, will […]
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Director Tiffany Shlain on Connected
“Some films go deep,” filmmaker Tiffany Shlain said at the Sundance premiere of her documentary, Connected. “Mine goes wide.” Indeed, Shlain’s film does go wide — it’s like a rubber band stretching in multiple directions while not breaking. Examining the ways in which technology can productively unite our global citizenry, Connected details nothing less than the history of consciousness and its arrival within today’s always-on, hyper-wired mind. Through voiceover narration and breezy montage, Connected explores the right brain/left brain split and its effect on social and economic organization, and it highlights the transformative potential of today’s communication tools. As a […]
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REFLECTING ON EMERGING VISIONS
One thing I’ve been thinking a lot about since the Emerging Visions program is how different everyone’s path is to making every single one of their movies. Whether it’s your first one or your 15th, it’s always going to be a unique process. And even though each experience of making a film helps you build on your next film, each film is in a way like starting from scratch. All the writers, directors, and producers I met and listened to during Emerging Visions had something in common and that was their in-it-for-the-long-haul passion and their commitment to making each and […]
