Filmmaking

“THE IMPERIALISTS ARE STILL ALIVE!” SCREENS IN BROOKLYN

Filmmaker Zeina Durra’s Sundance Competition film The Imperialists are Still Alive! has its East Coast premiere tonight, June 24, in an Indiewire-hosted screening at the 2nd Northside Festival of Film and Music in Brooklyn. The film, a graduate of the IFP Narrative Lab, is an upscale Manhattan comedy of manners with an internationalist flavor and a post-9/11 paranoid bent. It also has the most arresting first shot of the year. Writing for Filmmaker, Eric Kohn said of the film: Consider the revelatory drama The Imperialists Are Still Alive! Like a 1990s-era Amerindie upgraded to post-9/11 concerns, this insightful low key […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 24, 2010 Filmmaking
INTRODUCING “THE GREEN HORNET”

I’m not sure I see the Michel Gondry in this trailer for his The Green Hornet. On the other hand, as this interview with Gondry, Seth Rogen and producer Neil Moritz at Ain’t It Cool News points out, the trailer is intended for newcomers to the comic and doesn’t get into the intricacies of the film or some of its more innovative visual elements. I’m not a fan of the comics but am a big Gondry fan. What do you think?

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 22, 2010 Filmmaking
EXPLAINING THE PERILS OF NATURAL GAS

Josh Fox’s Gasland was a huge hit at Sundance and plays this week on HBO. Here’s a quick piece on Fox and the issues surrounding natural gas explored in his film.

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 22, 2010 Filmmaking
“WILLIAM KUNSTLER: DISTURBING THE UNIVERSE” ON POV

The documentary portrait of legendary civil rights lawyer William Kunstler, William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe, has its television premiere tomorrow night, June 22, on POV. The film is directed by Kunstler’s two daughters, Emily and Sarah, and here, a day after Father’s Day, are their thoughts on rediscovering their dad through film: POV: How has your views of your father changed over the years, and what is his legacy to you? Emily: I think that every child has a moment where he or she starts to understand his or her parents as human beings instead of as heroes. For Sarah […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 21, 2010 Filmmaking
FILMING TWITTER

If you hate the idea of Twitter (which, for the record, I do not as I find it generally positive and useful), this video may not change your mind. Jen Oslislo has just posted the second of her videos in which her friends turn their favorite tweets into short films. (Hat tip: Daring Fireball, aka John Gruber, who contributed one of the better ones to this collection.) Twitter: The Criterion Collection, Vol II from Jen Oslislo on Vimeo.

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 20, 2010 Filmmaking
NEW YORK’S LITTLE PEOPLE

I don’t think I’ve ever blogged about any of the tilt-shift videos that are all over the web. With this technique, real people, places and things look like they are miniatures. Here’s a cool one featuring a shrunken New York called “The Sandpit” by Sam O’Hare.

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 18, 2010 Filmmaking
CINEMATIC RENDITION

I received this email as a response to this week’s edition of the Filmmaker newsletter. (If you don’t get the newsletter, which contains an Editor’s Letter not appearing on this blog, you can subscribe for free here.) Scott, I always love your weekly newsletter editorials and from your last I know you need a quick, humorous distraction. The new model for film distribution occurred to me today. I’m in a creative headstorm with my editor and since our film is about humanity, the universe, and the space program under the Bush Administration, it all synthesized at once. We kidnap potential […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 18, 2010 Filmmaking
13 TAKEAWAYS FROM THE IFP NARRATIVE LAB

The recently concluded IFP Narrative Lab was a dense week of study and mentorship as our participating filmmakers, all with films somewhere between rough and fine cut, were given guidance about picture lock, sound design, scoring and music licensing, festival strategy, distribution deals, and DIY, self and hybrid distribution efforts. Amy Dotson and Rose Vincelli from the IFP did a fantastic job of putting the program together. Susan Stover, Jon Reiss and I were the lab leaders. In addition, an inspiring group of editors, filmmakers, producers and industry vets came in to lend their expertise. At the end of the […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 17, 2010 Filmmaking
PETER BRUNETTE, R.I.P.

I was shocked and tremendously saddened to read at Indiewire this morning the news that film critic Peter Brunette died today of a heart attack while attending the Taorima Film Festival in Italy. Eugene Hernandez’s obituary recalls Brunette’s many accomplishments, including his books on Michelangelo Antonioni, Wong Kar-wai and, most recently, Michael Haneke, as well as his work as director of film studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. From an excerpt from a Wake Forest publication quoted by Hernandez: “People should watch art films for the same reason they should read Virginia Woolf as well as Tom Clancy,” […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 16, 2010 Filmmaking
JAMIE STUART’S “SPLICE THIS”: A TRIP TO EDITFEST NY

Caffeine, The Departed and too much B-roll brings out Jamie Stuart’s hardboiled, affectionately profane persona in Splice This, a short film based around his trip to EditFest NY this weekend. It features interview material with longtime Scorsese-collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker and ace editor Alan Heim. (Warning: profanity. Not safe for work.) See more videos on our YouTube channel. You can also download the original Quicktime here.

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 16, 2010 Filmmaker Videos

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