Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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SOUND AND FURY: BELA TARR’S “THE TURIN HORSE” PLUS MORE AT THE CANNES FILM FESTIVAL
Sound design can be a filmmaker’s secret weapon. Psycho (1960) and Dirty Dancing (1987) aside, moviegoers are often hard pressed to remember the popular songs played in a film, let alone what a film itself sounded like. Yet in these layered, dense aural textures, every footstep and cigarette burn is meticulously tuned. Though it may never climb to the level of conscious analysis, this can have a deep psychological and emotional effect–particularly if the audience is treated to the top tier acoustics and audio systems of the theaters at the Cannes Film Festival. The sound work and soundtrack in director Lynne Ramsay‘s Morvern […]
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MY OWN FILM SCHOOL
There are some jobs that bring about as much pain and rejection as they do inspiration and success. Screenwriting might be at the top of that list of professions. For every motivational tale of years spent toiling, hunched over the keyboard finally resulting in a six-figure sale, there are thousands of writers who continue to pound keys in front of just the pale, blue glow, still dreaming of being illuminated by a larger spotlight. Beginning writers are known to try everything in order to fulfill these dreams. They spend hours scanning the internet for names of agents and managers. They […]
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ON WOMEN FILMMAKERS AND NOT WRITING ABOUT FILMS AT CANNES
For several years whenever I haven’t attended one of the major festivals, I’ve obsessively surfed to all the various film sites several times each day, hoping to soak up enough buzz and read enough reviews to feel connected — to feel like I’m somewhat there. And, invariably, I’m a little disappointed that there’s not more. Yes, there are reliable sources to turn to. Jeff Welles is always a fast and flavorful with his postings, mixing his first-person experience with industry news and commentary. Ann Thompson catches the pulse of the business, and Eric Kohn is mind-bogglingly quick with his review […]
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SCORSESE AND VON TRIER OR SCORSESE, DE NIRO & FELLINI?
We’ve kinda been down this road before. In early 2010, around the time of the Berlin Film Festival, reports rumors hit the blogsphere that Lars von Trier, Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro were planning a remake of Taxi Driver in the vein of The Five Obstructions by making it five times, each with rules created by von Trier. Now out of Cannes, Scorsese and von Trier are bringing up the idea again. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Scorsese project to be dissected has not been decided yet but shooting will begin after Scorsese is done with the Daniel […]
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TFI NEW MEDIA FUND DEADLINE MAY 25
Supporting filmmakers who are delving into the medium of transmedia, the Tribeca Film Institute has currently opened submissions for its TFI New Media Fund. Seeking non-fiction, social issue media projects that are integrated across multiple platforms, four to eight projects will be accepted to receive $50,000 – $100,000 in funding. According to the TFI website, the fund is dedicated to nurture “projects that activate audiences around issues of contemporary social justice and equality around the world and demonstrate the power of cross-platform storytelling and dynamic audience engagement.” Eligible projects can be non-fiction or scripted as long as it’s based on […]
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Director Zach Clark on Vacation!
I first met Zach Clark last October when his excitingly subversive, sex-scene-less SXSW hit Modern Love Is Automatic opened Pornfilmfestival Berlin (where my own short The Story of Ramb O had its premiere). Since we barely had the chance to chat in the buzzing, jam-packed Moviemento hub, I was thrilled when I heard recently that Clark’s follow-up Vacation! (pictured above) was already on the festival circuit and would be playing theatrically at Brooklyn’s own reRun Gastropub Theater in May. Finally I had an excuse to find out what makes this offbeat yet seemingly well-adjusted director of a feature about a […]
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ANTICIPATION OF THE NIGHT: LOOKING AHEAD TO THE CANNES FILM FESTIVAL
In a time zone six hours away, the espresso is stockpiled. The line-up is out. The hotels are booked. The contestants are in their corners. It’s time for the industry’s storied annual trade show/summer camp, the Cannes Film Festival. Actors, producers and executives will tend to prioritize networking events, while film programmers, distributors and journalists will gorge on films until the juice runs down their faces. I plan to gobble movies until my eyes glaze over, flickering like bionic screens. A colleague recently complained about the tendency of festival goers to refer to films not by title but by the director’s name, which […]
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City of Life and Death — A Hammer to Nail Review
(City of Life and Death opened on May 11, 2011 at Film Forum in New York City. Learn more at the film’s official website.) In December 1937, China’s capital city Nanking fell to the invading Japanese Imperial Army. During the weeks that followed, the Japanese raped, tortured, and butchered the city’s remaining inhabitants; the death toll varies widely, but some estimates put it at over 300,000. Lu Chuan’s epic film, which screens at Film Forum through May 24 and in select U.S. cities after that, dramatizes the Nanking Massacre (also known as the Nanjing Massacre) from multiple perspectives. The major […]
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MARC MAURINO’S “INSIDE THE MACHINE” SOLD TO CBS FILMS
Yesterday Deadline reported that Marc Maurino’s spec script, Inside The Machine, sold to CBS Films. Beau Flynn and Tripp Vinson are producing for Contra Films. I want to wish Marc a huge round of congratulations for this sale. Last fall, I posted a series of pieces strolling down Filmmaker‘s memory lane. In each, I looked back at a single issue of the magazine, and in the second post Marc responded in the comments section with his own story. He wrote about how he discovered Filmmaker Magazine at a film festival and how it made him want to get into independent […]
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Six Asides on Paranormal Activity 2
Paranormal Activity 2 is not an avant-garde film, but only because no one has argued that it is. 1. The Importance of Framing The difference between commercial culture (pop culture) and the avant-garde is a matter of rhetorical framing. Jean-Luc Godard, for instance, created the conditions for the New Wave not only through his films, but through his words about his films, and about cinema in general. Confrontational, witty, manifesto-like, Godard framed the way people saw his films. Godard was an auteur of language, not just cinema. “A movie should have a beginning, a middle, and an end,” he famously […]
