Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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The Microbudget Conversation: Perspective
So last week we presented one type of manifesto knowing full well it’s almost impossible to define what this all is. The feedback was wonderful and I want to take a moment before I present the next two manifesto perspectives to comment. I think some people are completely right about the fact that sometimes the point of micro-budget is to NOT be part of a group. However, as humans, we group ourselves, and others, together so that we can quickly categorize and compartmentalize the world around us. Which is the very reason I started thinking about a rule book. Groups […]
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TRAILER WATCH: DAVID CRONENBERG’S “A DANGEROUS METHOD”
The trailer for David Cronenberg’s latest, A Dangerous Method, which is about Carl Jung’s relationship with a female patient and his clash with Sigmund Freud, is online. The film stars Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley and Viggo Mortenson. According to The Playlist, Knightley has a “lengthy neurotic monlogue” that “steals the show.” Indeed, her extreme physical angularity may never have been used to such good effect as it appears to have been used here.
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SUNDANCE DIRECTOR’S LAB BLOG: KASI LEMMONS
Filmmaker Kasi Lemmons (Talk to Me, The Caveman’s Valentine, Eve’s Bayou) attended this year’s Sundance Director’s Lab as an advisor, and here is a blog report about her experience. It challenging to put into words an almost magical experience, but I’ll try. I’m here at the Sundance Filmmaker’s Lab. I’ve been here since Sunday. I’m happy and energized and exhausted. The feeling is familiar. I always experience it on the mountain. The mountain to me is Sundance and Sundance is the mountain. The mountain is always magical. I’ve been here many times as an advisor. Usually there’s at least three […]
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Apple Releases New Final Cut Pro X; Our Review To Follow
UPDATE: Read David Leitner’s first take on Final Cut Pro X here. This morning Apple released its long awaited, ground-up rethink of its professional editing software, Final Cut Pro. Available for $299 from the Apple Store, the new FCP is both drastically lower in price than the previous version and contains numerous improvements, including, wrote David Leitner at NAB this Spring, a “dramatically revamped interface, 64-bit processor capability, no more RAM ceiling of 4GB, and continual background rendering by means of unused CPU cycles.” Leitner’s takeaway then: With FCP X, Apple is returning to the one-size-fits-all ethos of the […]
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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 […]
