Filmmaking
Filmmaking
-
FOREVER CONTRABAND: WENDELL B. HARRIS JR.’S “CHAMELEON STREET”
Perhaps it goes without saying that the world of independent film missed the boat on Wendell B. Harris Jr. No one, especially this author with the same surname as the now fifty-six year old Michigan native, wants to play the woulda, shoulda, coulda game. Yet whenever I think about the career I would have liked to have seen Mr. Harris have, it’s hard not to turn a bit melancholy. I guess being in the right place in the right time with the right people and a large enough sum of money counts for something, but if being at the podium […]
-
Revisiting The Topic Of Indie Movies And Youth
This is perhaps the longest gestating blog post in Filmmaker Blog history. Back in December, Ted Hope commented on the graying of the arthouse audience in a post entitled “Can Truly Free Film Appeal to Younger Audiences?” He asked: What is it that new audiences want? What must the indie community do to engage them? It is really surprising how few true indie films speak to a youth audience. In this country we’ve had Kevin Smith and Napoleon Dynamite, but nothing that was youth and also truly on the art spectrum like Run Lola Run or the French New Wave (Paranormal […]
-
Connecting your PS3 To your Mac’s Airport Network
This post is half public service for the tech-challenged (like me), and half “note to self” for the next time I change my internet connection settings. Briefly, like the many PS3 owners who have posted all over the internet looking for help, connecting a PS3 to the internet can be a challenge if you’re not quite sure what to do. I remember cursing the Gods of Sony last year when I bought a PS3. Then, through some kind folks on Twitter, I figured out how to do it and all was good. Recently, I changed my home ‘net security from […]
-
RICK MOODY’S “FOUR FINGERS OF DEATH”
I don’t need any special encouragement to blog about a new book by Rick Moody…. especially when it has to do with a “blocked writer… whose major success is winning the right to author the novelization of the remake of the 1963 horror flick The Crawling Hand.” And when it has a pretty great trailer that took me back to Saturday afternoons watching Channel 20 in Washington, D.C. when I was growing up. (Hat tip: The Rumpus.)
-
The Set Up: Three Pairs of DPs and Production Designers Reveal the Creative Synergies Between These Two Departments
Without an environment to shoot, cinematographers have nothing; without directors of photography to shoot their sets, production designers have no purpose. It takes a lot of people to build a world for the camera to film, and while the director may inspire and supervise its creation, it takes a production designer and a cinematographer to get it in front of the lens. The creative and practical collaboration between these two key crew members often gets personal. It is always co-dependent. We spoke to three such teams about their most recent projects together – Inbal Weinberg and Andrij Parekh of Blue […]
-
TILDA SWINTON’S LAUREL & HARDY FLASH MOB DANCE
At the Festival Square in Edinburgh, Tilda Swinton organized and led a flash mob dance yesterday, coinciding the launch of her new charity, the 8 1/2 Foundation. From an article in the Scotsman: Gathering several hundred willing participants under the shadow of Edinburgh Castle, she led them in a soft-shoe shuffle known as At The Ball, by the Avalon Boys, originally performed by Laurel and Hardy, in an effort to create a “flash mob dance”, where a group suddenly and spontaneously start dancing in a public place. The instructions, disseminated online, were simple: watch the Laurel and Hardy clip, turn […]
-
NAME THIS BRET EASTON ELLIS SHORT FILM
Filmmaker (and former Filmmaker Managing Editor) Matt Ross made this short film updating the European trip montage from Rules of Attraction to material taken from and inspired by all of Ellis’s books, including his new Imperial Bedrooms. It stars Kip Pardue, James Van Der Beek and Tara Summers, and it was conceived of, shot, and edited in ten days. And, oh yeah, it has no name. You can take part in a contest by naming the film at the Knopf website.
-
WOULD YOU LIKE WINE WITH YOUR FILM?
Over at FilmInFocus, screenwriter Howard Rodman picks up on the vino intelligence of Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids are All Right to riff on wines that would go well with specific films. Here’s his recommendation for Far from Heaven: The elegance and depth of Far From Heaven deserves an expression of fruit, tannin, poignance, melancholy, and regret. A wine that satisfies on first sip, then opens up in the glass to reveal tastes and emotions far more profound. Giacomo Conterno’s Barolo Monfortino is such a wine. A bottle of the 1982 will take you to the precipice, then gently guide you […]
-
VIC SKOLNICK, R.I.P.
I was saddened to hear of the death of Vic Skolnick, an influential co-founder of Long Island’s first major art house movie theater, The Cinema Arts Center, in Huntington, N.Y. Passing away at 81 on June 10th, Skolnick, along with his wife, Charlotte Sky, founded what was originally known as the New Community Cinema in 1973. Skolnick, a teacher for twenty years at N.Y. public schools, combined his passion for history with a lifelong love of films. His ambition was to show as many diverse films as possible and educate his loyal audience in innovative cinema. The cinema went through […]
-
SUNDANCE DIRECTOR’S LAB DIARY: SAODAT ISMAILOVA
The Sundance Director’s Lab is currently wrapping at the Sundance Institute in Utah, and we have two filmmakers blogging about their experience. First up is Uzbekistan writer/director Saodat Ismailova, whose project, 40 Days of Silence, is described like this: “Four generations of women under one roof in Uzbekistan look to each other for comfort as they try to overcome their destinies.” Yesterday, June 19th, the director’s lab came to the end. When I look back at the past three weeks of my life it already seems like it was more than a year ago… I will simply divide the process […]
