Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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“ZENITH” AND SHOCKS TO THE SYSTEM
Directed by Anonymous (or, maybe, “experiment supervisor” Vladan Nikolic), Zenith is described as a “paranoid sci-fi found object from the future,” and it’s inspired by the notorious Milgram experiment, a real psychology experiment exploring man’s potential for both acquiescence to authority and cruelty. Wrote Michael Atkinson in the Village Voice: “The film they don’t want you to see,” by “Anonymous,” shouts the teaser, prefaced by warnings of legal threats and “illegal” images. Zenith comes off at first blush as merely a spurt of faux-transgression looking for rubberneckers. But it’s actually a densely written, sparsely filmed dystopia, using the wasteyards and […]
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A Free Guide To DSLR Cinematography
If you’re a regular reader you’ll know that Koo’s No Film School is one of my favorite blogs. It has rapidly become a trusted source for new product news and evaluations as Koo looks at what’s new from the point-of-view of the working independent filmmaker. He also comes up with a lot of great finds, like this beautiful footage from d.p. Timur Civan, who put an ancient 1908 Wollensak 35mm F5.0 Cine-Velostigmat hand cranked cinema camera lens on his Canon 5D Mark 2, achieving a vintage, analog look. Check this out: 102 year old lens on 5D mkII – Video […]
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REMEMBERING JOHN LENNON’S LOST, MAYBE GAY WEEKEND
In the bookstores is a new John Lennon bio, Lennon Revealed, and speculation about Lennon’s famous “lost weekend” to Spain with Marianne Faithfull where it’s long been rumored that he had an affair with manager Brian Epstein. In an interview published on the Today show site, author Larry Kane discusses the topic and brings up one of the best independent films of the 1990s. From the piece: Did John Lennon and Brian Epstein have physical sexual relations with each other? It was a question that was on many minds within the Beatles’ circle, and to a lesser degree within the […]
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RICHARD CURTIS’S EXPLODING CHILDREN FOR CLIMATE CHANGE
Four Weddings and a Funeral director Richard Curtis scripted this commercial promoting a climate change campaign that’s been pulled from theaters in the U.K. due to its…. exploding children. Gillian Anderson did the voiceover, Radiohead provided music, and it also features soccer star Peter Crouch. In their report, The Guardian notes the inspiration of Monty Python, but many people didn’t seem to get the joke. Learn more about the 10:10 campaign that urges people to cut their carbon emissions here.
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“AMERICAN SPLENDOR” AT STRANGER THAN FICTION
At last night’s Stranger Than Fiction, a weekly documentary series at the IFC, host Thom Powers paid tribute to underground comic icon Harvey Pekar, who died in July of this year, by screening American Splendor, the dramatization of Pekar’s celebrated autobiographical comic series about his life as a file clerk. A comics fanatic who became friends with the writer while working in the underground comic scene, Powers described discovering Pekar’s work as “a truly transformative experience.” Powers almost did not attend a screening of the film at Sundance in 2003, terrified it would do something horrible to something “so precious.” […]
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TRAILERING JAMIE STUART’S “NYFF 48″
Jamie Stuart’s video of the 48th New York Film Festival will be live next week. For now, a trailer…. Download this trailer here in Quicktime.
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INDEPENDENT FILM WEEK WRAP-UP: TAKEAWAYS AND GRATITUDE
I now have a full week’s perspective on what happened at Independent Film Week as part of the Emerging Narrative section; what I learned, who I met, follow-up completed, what I might have done differently, and a new sense of where I’m going. If you are considering applying for next year, or lucky enough to have gotten in, hopefully this will be helpful. The best place to start, and usually the best place to finish, is with gratitude. I’m grateful to IFP for having selected my project; to the IFP volunteers, who with smiles and patience steered us around for […]
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“STRANGER THINGS,” “MARWENCOL” WIN WOODSTOCK
I was very excited to see the list of Woodstock Film Festival winners over at Indiewire. Two Filmmaker favorites picked up the top prizes. You’ve read about Jeff Malmberg’s Marwencol on the site before (see Alicia Van Couvering’s blockquote interview with the director here), and if your memory is good you’ll remember that I picked Stranger Things directors Eleanor Burke and Ron Eyal for our 2009 “25 New Faces” after seeing the rough cut of this very same feature. I think this is a beautiful, delicate, and extremely well directed and acted film, and I’m really happy that it’s now […]
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Unboxing and Shooting with the Canon 60D
Geek.com posted these two videos from J.J. Kim at Orange Wedding Films containing info on the new Canon 60D. The 60D sits between the Rebel T2i and the Canon 7D in their product line, and it has a flip-out LCD screen, which is obviously an attractive feature for anyone interested in shooting handheld video. The first is an unboxing video and comparison with the Canon 7D. Canon 60D quick review video from Orange Wedding Films on Vimeo. The second is test footage comparing the 60D to the 7D. Canon EOS 60D vs 7D short sample footage from Orange Wedding Films […]
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Is Apple Delaying a New Final Cut Studio?
Back in May at his No Film School blog, Koo asked, “Is Apple Dumbing Down Final Cut Studio?”, wondering whether the “pro” elements of the Mac editing platform would be diminished (or, perhaps, not updated) in favor of features of interest to the less-pro “prosumer” crowd. Well, today, according to Hardmac.com, a next version of FCS could indeed be delayed. The site reports: A few months ago we told you that Apple were hoping to release a new version of their Final Cut Studio suite in 2010. It now seems likely that this target has been missed according to one […]
