Filmmaking

No Film School’s Guide To DSLR Shooting

At Filmmaker we’ve been on top of the DSLR story — the use of small digital SLR still cameras by filmmakers — in a series of articles beginning last year. (See “Shutterbugs” in Spring, 2009, and “Pimp your DSLR” in Summer.) That said, Ryan Bilsborrow-Koo has just posted an astonishingly detailed and useful article on his No Film School site called “The DSLR Cinematography Guide.” It’s got a huge amount of information in it with tons of hyperlinks to other articles, posts on user forums, and the blogs of various d.p.’s working with the format. I highly recommend it if […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 18, 2010 Filmmaking
“PUTTY HILL” DIRECTOR MATT PORTERFIELD BLOGS FROM BERLIN

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about Matt Porterfield’s Kickstarter campaign for his film Putty Hill. He needed to raise $10,000, and with 30 hours left to go, he is still collecting funds over and above his goal; he’s currently at $18,926. Undoubtedly, the film’s high-profile premiere — in the Berlin Film Festival’s Forum section — helped. You can follow his adventure there over at the IFP blog, where Porterfield has been blogging. Here’s an excerpt where he talks about some of the people he has been meeting: I saw Claire Denis (pictured) speak to the Talent Campus today […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 16, 2010 Festivals & Events
TIME CAPSULING OBAMA’S ELECTION DAY

In the Fall of 2008 filmmaker Jeff Deutchman asked his friends from around the world to record their feelings and experiences on the day Barack Obama was elected President. The resulting material comprises his feature 11/4/08, which premieres at SXSW next month, and Deutchman is still in post raising money. He has a Kickstarter page and is looking to raise $3,500 for color correction and the preparation of various marketing materials. Here’s how he describes the project: Two weeks before the election of Barack Obama, filmmaker Jeff Deutchman asked his friends around the world to record their experiences of 11/4/08, […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 16, 2010 Filmmaking
CINEKINK RETURNS FOR ITS SEVENTH NEW YORK FESTIVAL

Returning to the Anthology Film Archives following an opening night event at Kush Lounge is Cinekink NYC. No rebel posturing here, just an eclectic selection of docs, fiction and experimental works dealing with some form of alternative sexuality. This year’s fest kicks off tonight at Kush Lounge with an opening party and screenings of JX Williams 1964 short, The 400 Blow Jobs. According to the catalogue, “While banished to the Hollywood blacklist, JX Williams wrote and directed over 200 stag films in the 1950s and 60s, including this wicked homage to Francois Truffaut.” Also on the bill: Loretta Hintz’s Sheep […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 16, 2010 Filmmaking
NEW BREED PARK CITY: EXPLORING THE SOLUTIONS 3

Hot off the hard drive, here is the latest episode of the New Breed’s Park City series. This one pulls together producers and directors to talk about the strategic, pro-active steps they are taking to connect their films to audiences. The official word: SABI filmmakers Zak Forsman and Kevin K. Shah pick up with Ted Hope where he left off in the last episode to further explore the solutions that are emerging for independent filmmakers. He is joined by Mynette Louie (Children of Invention) and new interviews with Sultan Sharrief (Bilal’s Stand), Lance Weiler (HiM), and Scilla Andreen (IndieFlix). NEW […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 15, 2010 Filmmaking
VON TRIER/SCORSESE/DE NIRO MAY BE PONDERING “TAXI DRIVER” REMAKE

UPDATE 2/16: Screen reports that the remake rumors are just that. The biggest news so far to come out of the Berlin Film Festival is on a film that was made 36 years ago. Spreading all over the blogs, Lars von Trier and Martin Scorsese are supposedly mulling over the idea of remaking Taxi Driver with Robert De Niro to reprise the role of Travis Bickle. In Variety, Gunnar Rehlin reports: The idea behind the project is similar to the film The Five Obstructions that von Trier and Danish helmer Jorgen Leth made in 2003. In that film, von Trier […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Feb 15, 2010 Festivals & Events
TRAILERING SXSW’S THE MYTH OF THE AMERICAN SLEEPOVER

One independent film I’ve been aware of for some time (it’s described in the press materials as “a labor of love five years in the making”) and was happy to see in the SXSW line-up is David Robert Mitchell’s The Myth of the American Sleepover. It’s Mitchell’s feature debut, it was produced by Adele Romanski, and it was shot on the RED One by Medicine for Melancholy‘s James Laxton. Check out the trailer below. The Myth of the American Sleepover – Official Trailer from Strike Anywhere on Vimeo.

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 15, 2010 Filmmaking
KYLE COOPER ON THE ART OF TITLE DESIGN

Film titles? If you’re like many independent filmmakers, by the time you get to them you are low on post funds and you suddenly wind up with a newfound artistic appreciation of Woody Allen’s career-long white serif font on black approach. To inspire you to set aside some money during budgeting for a title sequence that will be as groundbreaking as your movie, check out Forget the Film, Watch the Titles, a website devoted to the art of title design. There are articles and videos about 130 different titles sequences and 70 different designers, including star title designer Kyle Cooper, […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 15, 2010 Filmmaking
IN BERLIN: BEAUTIFUL DARLING

Beautiful Darling, James Rasin’s documentary on the life of actress and Warhol superstar Candy Darling, premieres at the Berlin Film Festival this week. In it, actress Chloe Sevigny voices Darling. From the film’s website: Beautiful Darling, a documentary film, pays tribute to the short but influential life of an extraordinary person — the actress Candy Darling, born James Slattery in a Long Island suburb in 1944. Drawn to the feminine from childhood, by the mid-Sixties James had become Candy, a gorgeous, blonde actress and well-known downtown New York figure. Candy’s career took her through the raucous and revolutionary Off-off-Broadway theater […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 12, 2010 Filmmaking
PIRATE BAY’S PETER SUNDE CREATES FLATTR

I’ve written before that I think alternative forms of currency may provide benefits for not just filmmakers but many niche content creators and also social interest vendors. Peter Sunde, one of the founders of the torrent site The Pirate Bay, has launched his venture, Flattr. Basically, on a monthly basis you commit to an amount of money that you’ll disperse to content creators. Then, as the month goes by, you click on their Flattr buttons and at the end of the month the service divvies up your funds and gives an equal amount to each person you’ve clicked. Watch below, […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 10, 2010 Filmmaking

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