Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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SUNDANCE DIRECTOR’S LAB BLOG: HOLDEN ABIGAIL OSBORNE
Writer/director Holden Abigail Osborne — one of Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces of 2010 — is currently at the Sundance Resort in Utah, developing her screenplay Adelyne as one of eight fellows at this year’s Director’s Lab. In the words of Sundance, “Each fellow has the opportunity to rehearse, shoot and edit selected scenes from his or her screenplay in a workshop environment, where the focus is completely on creative exploration and discovery.” Osborne is reporting on her experience in a pair of blog posts, the first of which is below, in the form of her notebook pages.
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WME’S GRAHAM TAYLOR ON ENTREPRENEURIAL FILM
Today’s morning read is WME Global head Graham Taylor’s keynote speech at the Los Angeles Film Festival, a smart and entertaining walk through not only his own career but the trajectory of independent film’s past and future. Since his speech references Hollywood blockbusters, perhaps it’s appropriate that it starts with Taylor’s own origin story, beginning in Portland, Oregon, where he grew up with an economist father and artist mother — two influences that will intertwine throughout his career. Another part of that origin story: Reservoir Dogs, the film that blew him away and made him want to be involved in […]
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ROBERT GREENE’S FATHER’S DAY SHORT
Filmmaker Robert Greene, whose Kati with an I was one of our Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You Gotham Award nominees last year, has posted on this Father’s Day a 20-minute short about his grandfather, Goodbye Engineer. Check it out below. GOODBYE ENGINEER from prewarcinema on Vimeo.
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IFP NARRATIVE LAB RECAP #3: TIM SUTTON
Filmmaker Tim Sutton (pictured) attended the IFP Narrative Lab with his feature Pavilion. Here is his short report about the week. FROM THE VACUUM TO THE ABYSS (Or how I stopped worrying and learned to love the IFP narrative lab)So I’ve spent years in “development hell.” Not the development hell you may be picturing — the round, padded, gymnasium-sized room where young filmmakers with dreams go to take their medication, age in fast motion, and walk zombie-style around the place, bumping into stacks of scripts while, behind a one-way mirror, Hollywood executive types in sharp lab coats laugh wickedly. (Oh, […]
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IFP NARRATIVE LAB RECAP #2: FIRST THOUGHTS FROM MARK HARRIS
Imagine you’re a boxer just starting out. You’ve been given the opportunity to go learn from a group of pros. You’re excited. You feel honored. You might even be a little full of yourself. Yeah, they picked me. I must be the shizzle. You get to the gym. There are pleasantries, how-are-yous, and the like. Then, the pros tell you to step into the ring. You think “Oh good, they are going to start teaching me some moves right away!” Then they spend the next week beating the living shit out of you. By day two you’re questioning things you […]
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IFP NARRATIVE LAB RECAP #1: ELISABETH HOLM
Producer Elisabeth Holm attended the IFP Narrative Lab with Keith Miller’s Welcome to Pine Hill (pictured). She filed this short report on her experience. IFP Narrative Lab Recap: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Releasing Your Film But Were Afraid To Ask The emotional highs and lows endured over 45 hours of last week’s IFP Narrative Lab are only paralleled by the peaks and valleys of middle-school dodgeball. As I trust any filmmaker who’s been lucky enough to gain the mentorship will say, the IFP Labs are highly intense, immersive, illuminating, engaging, challenging, rewarding, and exhausting. I am currently […]
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Rob Hauer
When asked who his professional role models are, L.A.-based d.p. Rob Hauer, who has lensed some of the best shorts of recent memory, cites some obviously inspirational folks, including Robert Richardson, Emmanuel Lubezki and Robert Elswit. “They show a wonderful range and their work elevates their stories, which I’d like to do as well. And none of them had overnight success — they had to work hard to get where they are, like all of us do.” But he cites other artistic influences too, harkening back to his early study as a still photographer at California State Polytechnic University, San […]
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A SHORT DOC ON STUXNET
As readers of the blog and print edition know, I am scarily fascinated by the development and future potential of Stuxnet, the weaponized computer virus that slowed down Iran’s nuclear program last year. For those who need to catch up on Stuxnet, here’s a striking short doc that’s just over three minutes long. It’s made by Patrick Clair and Scott Mitchell for the Australian TV program HungryBeast. Mitchell scripted, and Clair directed and to the riveting motion graphics. Check it out. Stuxnet: Anatomy of a Computer Virus from Patrick Clair on Vimeo.
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SONY CLASSICS TAKES CRONENBERG’S “A DANGEROUS METHOD”
In a press release sent out today, Sony Pictures Classics has announced that they have acquired the U.S. rights to David Cronenberg‘s next film, A Dangerous Method. Starring Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley, Vincent Cassel and Cronenberg regular Viggo Mortensen, the film follows how the intense relationship between Carl Jung (Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (Mortensen) gives birth to psychoanalysis. Knightley plays their patient, Cassel plays Freud disciple, Otto Gross. The film, Cronenberg’s 19th, is currently in post production and was shot mostly in Germany by the director’s longtime DP Peter Suschitzky. The composer is Howard Shore and adapted from Christopher Hampton‘s […]
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TRAILER WATCH: “BELLFLOWER”
We have an interview with Bellflower director Evan Glodell in the next issue of Filmmaker, and he talks about finessing this trailer with Oscilloscope until it was the best it can be. Check it out. The film is a real Sundance discovery, a twisted relationship drama from a filmmaker who, in our piece, says he didn’t even really know what a film festival was before he popped his DVD in the mail to the Park City programmers. What I liked about the film: its raw emotional immediacy. This is a film about a break-up, and the movie itself feels pretty […]
