Filmmaking
Filmmaking
-
“TEENAGE” WILDLIFE
Matt Wolf, one of our 25 New Faces of 2008, and author and critic Jon Savage are collaborating on a feature doc, Teenage, based on Savage’s 2007 book, Teenage: The Creation of Youth Culture. Although it may seem that being a teenager is an ahistorical fact of life, Savage’s book detailed the cultural creation of the teenage class, tracing its relationship to art, political movements, and the rise of consumer culture. Their feature will bring this all to life with, as their new teaser trailer exhibits, archival footage, an evocative voiceover by Jena Malone, and music by Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox. […]
-
SXSW BLOG: “BOB AND THE MONSTER” DIRECTOR KEIRDA BAHRUTH, PART 3
Too early: March 19th — Southwest Airlines back to Los Angeles. My husband and daughter are to my right (I’m an aisle girl). I’m almost too tired to blog. That’s a ridiculous statement, isn’t it? Too tired to blog? The word “blogging” hardly seems to infer any effort on its behalf. Blog. Okay, enough of that. Back to the point, SXSW, right? Right. It was amazing, in every sense of the word’s overuse. I loved it. The rest of the week I spent hanging out with other filmmakers and then musicians as they rolled into town. We screened the film […]
-
A FINAL REPORT ON SXSW INTERACTIVE 2011
My mind wasn’t blown this year. No Zeitgeist-nailing speaker convinced me that the world was about to change. Nor was there a high-profile washout, a speaker whose on-stage fail created its own newsworthy drama. I’m talking about SXSW Interactive, the mammoth convention/trade show/meet-up/party spot that crowds the stage with the more homespun SXSW Film in Austin each year. This was my fifth SXSW, and, a couple of years ago, in the midst of the indie film depression, I realized something. The positive energy, the feeding frenzy, the dollars — most of it was over on the interactive side. The kind […]
-
SEPARATING THE WHEAT FROM THE CHAFF: NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS
The late Sam Fuller, master of low-budget westerns and over-the-top psychosexual dramas, famously expressed to an adoring Godard the following overly quoted opinion of cinema (but it’s relevant here): “Film is like a battleground…Love. Hate. Action. Violence. In one word, emotion.” From the evidence on screen at this 40th edition of New York City’s New Directors/New Films (March 23-April 3) — I must admit, my favorite New York movie event, given that, theoretically, the choices are early works with edge — films built around long takes and a high ratio of long shots (Winter Vacation, Gromozeka, and Attenberg, for example) […]
-
“ATTACK THE BLOCK” AND MORE NEW SXSW AUDIENCE AWARDS
SXSW has announced three final awards for its 2011 edition. Here are the audience awards for its 24 Beats per Second, Lone Star States and Midnight sections. Austin, Texas – March 19, 2011 – The South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival announced additional Audience Award-winners today from the Lone Star States, 24 Beats Per Second and Midnight categories. Audience Award results for all categories were certified by the accounting firm of Maxwell Locke & Ritter. For the 2011 SXSW Film Festival, 140 features, consisting of 66 World Premieres, 15 North American Premieres and 15 U.S. Premieres, were selected […]
-
Breaking Down Ed Burns’ $9,000 Shooting Budget
While procrastinating working yesterday, I was following Ed Burns’ Twitter stream, in which he detailed the no-budget nature of his latest film, Newlyweds. With a shooting budget of $9,000, Burns worked with a three-person crew, shot on the Canon 5D (which he owns), had the actors wear their own clothes and do their own hair and make up, and worked without lights (except an occasional china ball) and sound mixer (the actors wore lavs). Tweeted Burns, “Sound is important but don’t let it slow you down. The Italian Neo-realists didn’t and they made some pretty great films…. No disrespect to […]
-
A WALK THROUGH SXSW’S SCREENBURN ARCADE
Here’s another quick iPod touch SXSW video, this one with short interviews with a few people who had booths at the festival’s ScreenBurn Arcade. Games for the whole family, Mike Tyson, corporal punishment and more… Featured: Unlimited Justice; “Taking on Tyson” ; Mayfair Games; Wyld Stallyns Games; Renegade Kid; GameGround.
-
SXSW BLOG: “YELLING TO THE SKY” PRODUCER BILLY MULLIGAN, PT. 2
The below post was written by Billy Mulligan, producer of the SXSW film, Yelling to the Sky. Six days of nonstop on-the-go hustle, with a few moments of pause for food coma recovery. That’s my SXSW in a nutshell. As a SXSW first-timer, I had heard countless times that it’s important to take the time to appreciate the Austin foodscape. After finally experiencing some of the culinary delights myself, it can’t be stressed enough that the Trailer Food culture that is ingrained into every fiber of the city is enough of a reason for any man, woman or child to […]
-
Redland — A Hammer to Nail Review
(Redland is distributed by Zyzak Film Company. After playing at several festivals in 2009, it opened theatrically at Laemmle’s Sunset 5 in Los Angeles on Friday, March 11, 2011. See here for a list of future showings.) Though the influence of its cinematic forebears is readily apparent, nary a film comes to mind whose approach is as singularly visual as Asiel Norton’s Redland. Words prove woefully insufficient in conveying its imagistic intensity, but a few descriptions nonetheless come to mind: an aged photograph come to life, key aspects of which are out of focus or otherwise difficult to discern; a […]
-
CAMERAS AND GEAR AT SXSW
I used my iPod Touch to shoot some short interviews at the SXSW trade show and Screenburn exhibits. (It’s the first time I used the iPod Touch instead of the Flip. The quality definitely isn’t as high, and there’s some drop-out and stuttering going on here. But the new iMovie, released to coincide with the iPad2, works on the iPod Touch, and while it’s not amazing it’s still pretty cool — despite occasional crashing and some difficulty scrubbing clips.) Below are comments on the Panasonic AG-AF100 and Red Rock Micro’s DSLR rigs.
