Filmmaking

HOW COULD CHRIS DODD’S BANKING BILL AFFECT YOUR FILM START-UP?

At his blog A VC, Fred Wilson examines a few provisions of the banking reform bill currently being debated in Congress and highlights a couple of provisions that could affect filmmakers. From his blog: 1) Changing the definition of a “qualified investor” in angel and venture deals. Not just anyone can invest in a startup company. You have to be a qualified investor. A qualified investor is currently defined as anyone with a net worth of over $1mm or net income of over $250k. Dodd’s bill would increase that to $2.3mm and $450k respectively. And then index those numbers to […]

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 26, 2010 Filmmaking
TRAILERING CATHERINE BREILLAT’S “BLUEBEARD”

On my list to see if Catherine Breillat’s Bluebeard, in which the iconoclastic French director takes on the classic tale from the point of view of two modern-day young girls. It opens today at the IFC Center. The trailer is below.

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 26, 2010 Filmmaking
Don Hahn, Peter Schneider on Waking Sleeping Beauty

As filmmakers, we are genetically programmed to look to the future. The next script, the next movie, the next deal. After all, the films — on DVD, on hard drives, in canisters stacked in our closets — are their own memories. Except, of course, that a film only tells part of the story. They are the ends of their tales, not the beginnings, and they only tell their own stories, and not the dramas of their making. If at all, those stories that circle around a film are only sometimes relayed in magazine profiles or in books written by people […]

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 26, 2010 Directing
Zacuto’s DSLR Shootout

Zacuto, which rents HD cameras and DSLR camera accessories, gathered professional DPs and colorists for a “DSRL Shootout.” They compared the Canon 7D, 5D Mark 2, ID, the Panasonic GH1 and Nikon D3s and compared them to footage shot on Kodak and Fuji stock. The results were evaluated by a range of DPs, including indie cinematographers and ASC members, at AFI and Skywalker Ranch. The results are pretty astonishing. The first episode, a 35-minute piece in which all of these camera’s latitude are examined, is up but it’s not embeddable. See it at the link above. The trailer, however, is […]

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 25, 2010 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

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