Filmmaking

NEW LCD SOUNDSYSTEM: “DRUNK GIRLS”

The new album hasn’t dropped yet, but this single has — at least on YouTube. To my ears it’s got kind of a Here Come the Warm Jets vibe. Meanwhile, Greenberg, which LCD’s James Murphy scored, is in theaters and its soundtrack is in the stores. It streams below.

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 25, 2010 Filmmaking
GRAND THEFT AUTO’S COCAINE NIGHTS

A misapprehension among people who do not play videogames is that the people who play them do so because these games must be fun. I am not saying that videogames are not fun. Sometimes they are and sometimes they are not, and whether one would call a game “fun” often has little bearing on whether or not one keeps playing it. To say that you play games because you are looking for fun is like saying you are hopping online or checking your iPhone because you are seeking information. You are, of course, but it’s way more complicated than that. […]

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 25, 2010 Filmmaking
CINEMA’S INVISIBLE ART

Over at the website for Cambridge’s famed literary journal Granta, Jeremy Sheldon has a remarkable post about screenwriting titled Cinema’s Invisible Art. In it he discusses the often overlooked literary qualities of screenwriting. While writing scripts is more commonly referred to as a craft than it is an art, for Mr. Sheldon deftly written descriptive scene action has literary qualities very few people give proper acknowledgement to. Despite the prevalence of accepted screenwriting truisms like “show, don’t tell” and “Film is a visual medium”, Mr. Sheldon celebrates stylish, rule breaking screenwriters from the Coen Brothers to Shane Black and indentifies […]

By Brandon Harris on Mar 25, 2010 Filmmaking
DAVID MAMET, SHOUTING IN ALL CAPS

Movieline has just printed a memo from David Mamet to the writers of the TV show The Unit, which he executive produced. It’s characteristically blunt and reductive, but in a good way. It’s nothing that you writers don’t know, but it is something that you writers (and, um, us producers) sometimes forget. Especially when responding to — or sometimes writing — notes of the “Do we really understand…?” variety. Here are a couple of excerpts, but read the whole thing at the link: SOMEONE HAS TO MAKE THE SCENE DRAMATIC. IT IS NOT THE ACTORS JOB (THE ACTORS JOB IS […]

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 24, 2010 Filmmaking
LOVE, HATE, LABUTE AND “HEAVY RAIN”

I took note of the videogame Heavy Rain after reading Seth Schiesel’s wildly positive review in the New York Times. Here are the first two grafs: The big storm has been raging for days. The winds around the eaves make me lonely, melancholy, and yet my guilt forces me forward in search of redemption. I have probably spent 10,000 hours playing various sorts of electronic games. But no single-player experience has made me as genuinely nervous, unsettled, surprised, emotionally riven and altogether involved as Heavy Rain, a noir murder mystery inspired by film masters like Hitchcock, Kubrick and David Lynch. […]

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 22, 2010 Filmmaking
FLORIA SIGISMONDI ON “THE RUNAWAYS”

While at Sundance I sat down with director Floria Sigismondi to discuss her debut feature, The Runaways, starring Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning as Joan Jett and Cherie Curie. I’ve been a fan of Floria’s for years, and with The Runaways she has brought her keen sense of place and design to convincingly recreate the Los Angeles rock scene of the ’70s. We talked about the origins of the movie, her cinematic inspirations (Christianne F.!), and getting the City of Angels right. Thanks to Sabi Picture’s Zak Forsman, Kevin Shah and Jamie Cobb for shooting and editing the piece.

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 19, 2010 Filmmaking
SXSW BLOG: “CANAL STREET MADAM” PRODUCER MRIDU CHANDRA, PART THREE

So I’ve been a little out of touch, I know. It’s taken some time to absorb what’s been going on since we premiered at the G-Tech 500 seat theater in the Austin Convention Center on Monday afternoon. Everything has been happening so fast. Jeanette Maier, the subject of our film, seemed pretty calm as we all had our photos taken in front of the step-and-repeat (the yellow SXSW logo wall) and there was a huge lineup before anyone got in. I realized this just after I sent a message to two colleagues who I’d been emailing with (but had never […]

By Filmmaker Staff on Mar 19, 2010 Filmmaking
SXSW BLOG: DAVID HILLMAN CURTIS, PART TWO

Here is Ride Rise Roar director David Hillman Curtis’s post-screening, post-Austin blog. Back in Brooklyn. Missing the warmth. The house we rented. The juice shack down the street I went to everyday, the festival and the films and the camaraderie we shared in that big house on Barton Blvd. It was an exciting trip for so many reasons. Like any big project, our film almost met an early fate several times. There were the cuts David rightly did not like and the commercial projects that sidelined the film for months at a time. A couple little flare ups looked as […]

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 18, 2010 Filmmaking
NEW GODARD (REALLY)

It’ not everyday that I can stream in its entirety a new film by Jean-Luc Godard on the website. Okay, I don’t know for sure that the teaser trailer for Godard’s forthcoming Socialism is the whole film, albeit sped-up, but I imagine it is. From a blog called Radio Deleuze comes what seems to be a synopsis: A symphony in three movements. Things such as: The Mediterranean, a cruise ship. Numerous conversations, in numerous languages, between the passengers, almost all of whom are on holiday… An old man, a war criminal (German, French, American we don?t know) accompanied by his […]

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 18, 2010 Filmmaking
TIPS ON ATTENDING FESTS BY SXSW DIRECTORS

Heather Menicucci from Howcast, the online site that develops filmmakers by having them create its instructional training videos, was down at SXSW meeting filmmakers and interviewing them for Howcast and YouTube’s Creator’s Corner. She’s just posted this video with tips from directors on how to attend SXSW. SXSW may be winding down on the film side (the awards are over but films are still screening), but, needless to say, these tips hold true for independent filmmakers and fests in general. Heather says the series will continue in coming days so check back to her site.

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 18, 2010 Festivals & Events

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