Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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NYFF: WEST MEMPHIS 3 ON HAND FOR UNVEILING OF NEW “PARADISE LOST 3” ENDING
You probably know by now that the West Memphis 3 (Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley Jr. and Jason Baldwin) were released from prison after giving an Alford plea — a guilty plea but not admitting to the act and asserting innocence — in August. At the time directors Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky were locking up their third film on the WM3, Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory, when they heard the news of the surprise development and raced down to Arkansas. Unable to put the footage of the three being freed in the film before screening it at the Toronto International Film […]
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AN EVENING AT OCCUPY WALL STREET
Last weekend I posted a great short video by Iva Radivojevic, “No One Can Predict the Moment of Revolution,” about the Occupy Wall Street protests. Radivojevic, along with her collaborator Martyna Starosta, returned to Liberty Plaza at night, and they have just posted “We the People Have Found our Voice,” which again captures the energy and political ambitions of the protestors. Visit the post on her site for her further thoughts, including a beautiful quote from an article about Alain Resnais’ Night and Fog.
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Shooting Occupied Wall Street for 99 Percent: The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film
I meet-up with documentarians Audrey Ewell and Aaron Aites in downtown New York, they introduce me to Joanna Arnow, and Joanna and I are off to Liberty Plaza. Two streets north of Wall Street — in the former shadow of the World Trade Center towers — Liberty Plaza Park was created in 1968, renamed Zuccotti Park in 2006 for a real estate baron, and then renamed back to Liberty Plaza a few weeks ago by the Occupying Wall Street protesters. The park is one long block long and one short block wide, paved in stone with several colorful flower beds, ringed […]
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The Blue Velvet Project, #27
Second #1269, 21:09 We don’t know it yet, but the faint buzzing sound of static we hear at this point comes from the flickering red neon ELEVATOR sign that Jeffrey—emerging from the far right side of the frame—will encounter in a few moments. Ian Watt—the great deconstructor of the barely visible codes of narrative fiction—once described the actions of a character named Kayerts in Joseph Conrad’s short story “The Outpost of Progress” and in doing so introduced the phrase “delayed decoding” to describe how Conrad sometimes placed readers in the position of his characters, for whom events unfolded more quickly […]
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VOD PORTAL MUBI GETS MOST VIEWERS FROM GAME CONSOLES
I had a chance to interview Efe Cakerel, founder of MUBI recently. Formerly known as The Auteurs, MUBI is a VOD portal/social network for cinephiles. It’s well known for its international library. What’s really interesting to me about MUBI is their strategy for film distribution, targeting not just PCs but game consoles as well. Their game console bet has paid off as you’ll see below. What you’ll find interesting is how to get your film in front of MUBI’s international viewers. Filmmaker: How do you select the films that are added to MUBI’s library? Do you work with filmmakers […]
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TAXI RIDERS: JESSICA ORECK
If you’ve taken a ride in the back of a New York City taxi cab these last two weeks, you may have heard the stories of seven of New York’s most distinctive independent filmmakers of the moment. In partnership with Royal Bank of Canada and the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, the IFP has produced six spots that are playing not only in cabs but on NYC Life. Jamie Stuart directed, T. Griffin scored and I produced these pieces, and each one, in addition to profiling a person, highlights a different aspect of the independent filmmaker’s current creative, production […]
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Week Four at the Edit Center
Monday brings more scene analysis! We watch three scenes: one from Fearless, one from Punch Drunk Love, and one from Mulholland Drive; all of them are specifically chosen not just for picture, but also for sound. The scene from Punch Drunk Love is one I remember especially well. Adam Sandler’s character discovers a lone harmonium in the street. It sits in near silence. Sandler stares at it. The silence extends and then is abruptly broken as a truck zooms by – but we see the truck approach way before we hear it … which is jarring in an effective way, […]
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ABEL FERRARA ON “KING OF NEW YORK” AND “4:44” AT THE NYFF
Perhaps the chilliest press conference I ever attended, one in which the conflicts of the movie seemed to drift right off the celluloid into the audience and then back onto the stage, occurred when Abel Ferrara’s The King of New York played the New York Film Festival in 1990. I was thrilled by the film, particularly its concluding adagio, in which Christopher Walken bleeds out in the back of a taxi cab stuck amidst the traffic of Times Square. The lights came up, and Ferrara, Walken, Wesley Snipes and some others from the cast walked onstage. The questions were contentious. […]
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IFP EMERGING VISIONS PROGRAM…REFLECTIONS
Now that I’m a seasoned blogger with two blog entries under my belt, this entry concludes my foray into this type of writing with my reflections on the Emerging Visions Program. Just as my first blog entry received positive feedback, a colleague praised my second entry. All this praise could go to my head, particularly since this last time he was so earnestly descriptive about the piece, calling it: “Wonderfully wonderful. Wonderful wonderful. Wonderfully.” He’s adorable – he’s European and is still mastering English adjectives. But his sentiment rings true. The entire experience was overwhelming, and I’m not sure I […]
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FASHION FILMS BENEFIT THE BELCOURT THEATER
The nD Festival, which brings together film, fashion and music, held its fashion show this week at the Belcourt Theater in Nashville. (Here’s a report from photographer Heidi Jewell.) The fest benefits the theater, and at the show short films by James Clauer, Kristin Barlowe and David McClister were shown. Each featured the work of one designer, and all three can be seen here. Embedded below is Clauer’s, a psychodramatic trip to the carnival outfitted by Steven Alan. Some of you will remember Clauer’s striking short, Aluminum Fowl, and his work on Big River Man. Reportedly, Clauer’s debut feature, When […]
