Filmmaking

WEINSTEINS TO FIGHT “TILLMAN” RATING

Over at Deadline Hollywood, Nikki Finke reports on The Weinstein Company’s announcement today that they will be appealing the MPAA’s “R” rating that they have bestowed on Amir Bar-Lev‘s doc The Tillman Story. The MPAA says they have given the rating based on the film’s excessive language. Granted, the Tillmans do throw out a lot of F-bombs in the film (and you may recall that the original title was I’m Pat F______ Tillman, which in fact are the last words Pat Tillman said before he was killed) but there’s a difference between a Kevin Smith profanity-laced film and this family’s […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Aug 11, 2010 Filmmaking
FILMMAKER FLASHBACK: WINTER, 1995

Winter, 1995, was a great issue. Our cover story was Rick Linklater’s Before Sunrise. Andrew Hindes interviewed Linklater, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, while Jean-Christopher Castelli detailed the film’s use of Austrian tax funds for its financing. Paula Bernstein interviewed James Gray about Little Odessa, and then there was one of the best pieces we’ve ever run: development executive (and, later, Oscar-winning short film director) Barbara Schock’s “The Write Stuff: Intelligent Screenplay Development.” Technology and methods of financing may change, but these notes on working with writers don’t date. From the piece: One of the biggest impediments I’ve encountered in […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 11, 2010 Filmmaking
WRITING FOR FILMMAKERMAGAZINE.COM

As the Fall approaches we’ll be adding new content and columns to the website. We have a number of ideas we’re working on, but I thought I’d also post this general call-out to writers who have particularly interesting, well-informed, idiosyncratic or simply personal perspectives on films, filmmaking or the film business. I’m not looking for traditional film reviewers, or people to do regular interviews. Instead, I’m interested in people who can contribute regularly to the site columns or pieces coming from original places and points of view. Mostly, I’m looking to discover some really good new voices about film. You […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 11, 2010 Filmmaking
FILMMAKER FLASHBACK: FALL, 1994

Steve James’ Hoop Dreams, Darnell Martin’s first feature, I Like it Like That, experimental filmmaker Eric Saks, and a report on non-linear editing, which was new at the time — those were all in our Fall, 1994 edition. But our big story was our cover — Hal Hartley’s interview of Jean-Luc Godard. Godard was in town for an exhibition of his work, including his new “self-portrait,” JLG BY JLG. Hartley met with Godard at 9:00AM in his suite at the Essex Hotel, and d.p. and photographer Gabor Szitanyi snapped the smoky shot of Godard we ran. Nothing from this issue […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 10, 2010 Filmmaking
A.O. SCOTT ON ERROL MORRIS’ FAST, CHEAP AND OUT OF CONTROL

When did the New York Times’ videos become embeddable? Here’s another of A.O. Scott’s movie appreciations, this time of one of my favorite documentaries of all time, Errol Morris’s Fast Cheap and Out of Control.

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 10, 2010 Filmmaking
GOOGLE/VERIZON: “YOU CAN HAVE YOUR INTERNET!”

As a general net neutrality supporter, I find the “read between the lines” nature of this latest news from Google/Verizon fairly ominous. The story, in which the two companies discuss setting up extra-internet wireless services, just broke, though, so I’ll be looking forward to reading the ensuing commentary and details. From the New York Times about their proposal: The proposal also excludes other online services [from net neutrality regulations] that broadband providers might create in the future. These new online services could include services for entertainment or healthcare monitoring, the companies said. Google and Verizon said that such new online […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 9, 2010 Filmmaking
BARBIE’S DREAM CAMERA

Here’s the latest camera shootout — the Canon 7D vs. the Barbie Video Girl. (Via No Film School.) Canon 7D vs. Barbie Video Girl from Brandon Bloch on Vimeo.

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 9, 2010 Filmmaking
THE NEW BREED L.A. #7: “SCREENING THE CUT”

“Don’t make your festival premiere your first test screening,” I always say to the filmmakers who take the IFP Narrative Lab. It’s sounds basic, but you’d be surprised at how many filmmakers I’ve come across who never properly screen their cuts with an audience before taking them out into the world. In this final episode of The New Breed‘s series on filmmakers and their creative process shot at the Los Angeles Film Festival, Marwencol director Jeff Malmberg and producer Ted Hope discuss their late-edit screening processes. Thanks to Zak Forsman and Kevin Shah of Sabi Pictures and to the Workbook […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 9, 2010 Filmmaker Videos
FILMMAKER FLASHBACK: SUMMER, 1994

Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction was our Summer, 1994 cover. The film won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May and was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. I didn’t go to Cannes and saw the film with only a few other people a couple of weeks later at the Magno screening room. I completely loved it, wanted it for the cover, but, for reasons I can’t remember, we couldn’t get an interview with Quentin. Nor could we get good original art. So, we commissioned a cover from Mark Zingarelli , interviewed the producers (Lawrence Bender and Stacy […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 9, 2010 Filmmaking
WHAT’S IN MY INSTAPAPER: MONDAY MORNING LINKS

I normally try to post my links-fests on Sundays, but here’s a one-day late compendium of articles in my Instapaper. If you read our newsletter, you’ll have seen my link to novelist Stacy D’Erasmo’s essay on the writer’s life, “The Long Haul,” over at The Rumpus. For any artist struggling to figure out not how to make work, but how to live a life that involves the perpetual making of work, including films, this is an essential read. In its clarity and wisdom I found it inspiring. An excerpt: Over the long haul, whether you ever intended to or not, […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 9, 2010 Filmmaking

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