Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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The Canon Rebel T2i: The No-Excuses Camera?
At Filmmaker we’ve been interested in the use of the new DSLR cameras — the Canon 5D and 7D, and the Nikon D90 — by filmmakers. Now, if ProLost’s Stu Maschwitz is correct, a lot more filmmakers will be experimenting with these video-recording still cameras. He dubs the Rebel T2i (also known as the 550D) the “no more excuses” camera due to its combination of price — $799! — and features carried over from the more expensive 7D. He writes about it in reference to the Canon HV20 video camera: I marked the Canon 7D as the real arrival of […]
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BEIJING TAXI: THE METER IS RUNNING
Filmmaker Miao Wang, a Beijing native now based in Brooklyn, is currently racing to finish her feature doc Beijing Taxi in time for SXSW, where it’s scheduled to world premiere. She needs to raise $11,000 to cover post-production expenses and is just under half way there with five days left to go at Kickstarter. From the Kickstarter page: BEIJING TAXI is a feature length documentary that vividly portrays Beijing undergoing a profound transformational arch. Through a humanistic lens, the intimate lives of three taxi drivers connect a morphing city confronted with modern issues and changing values. With diverse imagery combined […]
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A DIFFERENT KIND OF CLIP REEL
Most movie-moment montages work an A-B-A structure in which “A” is sentimental uplift. This montage by Paul Proulx goes for something different. (Hat tip: Anne Thompson.) the films of the 2000s from Paul Proulx on Vimeo.
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DAVID LYNCH ON MAKING A GOOD MOVIE
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HOW COOL IS INDIE FILM?
Indie film champions are often fond of comparing what we do to indie music. If bands can tour, why can’t we? If bands can sell merch, then we should too. If recording artists can form boutique labels, then why can’t film distributors? Like, for example, Oscilloscope, the film label of Beastie Boy Adam Yauch. At Flavorwire, Judy Berman takes this assumption to task in a piece called “Why is Indie Film Dying While Indie Music Thrives?” She bases her assessment of indie film’s slow-motion death on Edward Jay Epstein’s “Can Indie Movies Survive?”, which I found to be a pretty […]
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PAOLA MENDOZA ON BIG ART, LITTLE DEBT
In the new issue of Filmmaker, Esther Robinson penned “The Big Art/Little Debt Plan,” which discusses the relation of filmmakers to risk, their films, and their money. She reached out to several filmmakers by email, and their responses helped shape her article. We are running several of the responses Esther received here on the blog. Below is the one from Paola Mendoza, director of Entre Nos. What strategies did you employ to stay no/low debt during your production? My strategy was pretty simple: I refused to go into debt. While making art is the essence of who I am, I […]
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MASSIVE ATTACK COLLABORATES WITH GEORGINA SPELVIN, HOPE SANDOVAL
Bristol’s Massive Attack return this week with a new album, Heligo Land, and word has it that the band that once invented trip-hop and now is probably best known for providing the theme music for House may be revisiting the former glory of their classic albums Blue Lines and Protection. Preceding the album is this website, Massive Attack Tweatre, which is unveiling seven music videos commissioned for the album. Three are up so far, and the grabber is “Paradise Circus/Life of a Pornstar.” It’s a beautiful downtempo song sung by Hope Sandoval, and the video, directed by Toby Dye, is […]
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JP MORGAN RAISES FINANCING FOR DIGITAL CINEMA EXPANSION
As Scott posted earlier today, 3-D is not just on the minds of the majors. And with the news that JP Morgan has raised millions to finance the digital conversion of around 12,000 screens, it’s a first step for one day indie filmmakers to share their own 3-D projects with studio fare in theaters. According to the Los Angeles Times piece, the investment bank raised close to $700 million. The funding was delayed over a year due to the credit crunch. This comes three years after a consortium was formed by three of the largest exhibitors (AMC, Cinemark and Regal) […]
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MICHEL GONDRY’S MIA DOI TODD VIDEO
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PORTERFIELD’S PUTTY HILL PREMIERES IN BERLIN
Baltimore director Matt Porterfield’s (Hamilton) latest film Putty Hill premieres this month at the Berlin Film Festival’s Forum. On the film’s nicely-done website, Porterfield describes coming up with a five-page treatment that would use 15 locations when financing for a larger project, Metal Gods, fell through. About the result, he writes: Putty Hill is not quite like anything I’ve ever seen. On a most basic level, it is an amalgam of traditional forms of documentary and narrative realism. But it is an approach to realism in opposition to the anthropological, lyrical, and romantic currents present in most of the genre. […]
