Filmmaking

TARANTINO’S 2009 TOP TEN LIST… SO FAR

Quentin Tarantino posts his top ten list for 2009 as a work-in-progress. He’s got eight here while he lists the films he hasn’t seen yet. Interesting that he’s on the fence about District 9 — says he needs to see it again to determine what he thinks about it.

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 16, 2009 Filmmaking
PARAMOUNT GOES DIGITAL WITH tallhotblond

Several days after Paramount surprised the indie world with the announcement of a new division aimed at producing $100,000 micro-budget films, the studio’s Paramount Digital Entertainment (PDE) arm announced the pick-up of Barbara Schroeder’s indie doc, tallhotblond, Best Doc winner at the Seattle Film Festival. The film was repped by New York-based Submarine Entertainment and, reports Jeremy Kay in Screen Daily, the deal “is the first of its kind for the division.” He continues, PDE “will make the film available through download-to-own digital distributors including iTunes and Amazon following the broadcast premiere on MSNBC on December 13.” More: “talhotblond is […]

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 13, 2009 Filmmaking
PARAMOUNT TO START MICRO-BUDGET ARM

Is the sky no longer falling? Off the huge success of the low-budget Paranormal Activity, Paramount has decided to launch a division dedicated to movies budgeted at less than $100,000. According to the Los Angeles Times the studio plans to finance as many as 20 micro-budget movies annually starting in 2010. The division will not acquire films at film festivals or markets and its $2 million annual budget will be taken from Paramount’s existing production budget. Though studios have tried and failed at doing boutique arms in the past, Paramount says not all of the projects in this division will […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Dec 10, 2009 Filmmaking
DON’T TELL FOX: THE GUARDIAN LIKES AVATAR

With the rush to be first with entertainment news and critical opinion, publications everywhere are figuring out ways to flaunt the review embargoes that studios are just as quickly rushing to put in place. One particularly bold strategy is that of The Guardian’s Mark Brown, who writes about Avatar pre-embargo deadline with a post-modern, or perhaps just legalistic, twist: Rumours that the budget was double the stated amount, more like $500m. Rumours that the 3D effects were making people nauseous. Rumours that the film, two hours and 40 minutes long, was a complete car crash. The Guardian can reveal that […]

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 10, 2009 Filmmaking
SUNDANCE USA SLATE REVEALED

The Sundance Institute announced today the the films that will screen in eight different cities nationwide on Jan. 28th for their inaugural Sundance Film Festival USA series. The filmmakers will be dispatched from Park City to cities across America, where they will introduce and screen their films and engage in Q&As with local audiences. The films are: Cyrus — Ann Arbor, MI — Michigan Theater Directors and screenwriters: Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass –A recently divorced guy meets a new lady. Then he meets her son who is, well…interesting. Cast: John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei, Jonah Hill, Catherine Keener. World […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Dec 9, 2009 Filmmaking
SUNDANCE ANNOUNCES SHORTS FOR 2010

The Sundance Institute announced today the slate of shorts which will be screened at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. I’m Here, directed by Spike Jonze; The Fence, directed by Rory Kennedy; Logorama, directed by François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy, and Ludovic Houplain; and Seeds of the Fall, directed Patrik Eklund will premiere the first Thursday to kick off the start of the competition screenings. The Sundance Film Festival will run January 21-31 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah. The full list of shorts are below. U.S. DRAMATIC SHORTS Charlie and the Rabbit (Directors: Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck and […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Dec 7, 2009 Filmmaking
THREE IN THE KEY OF SUNDANCE

A while back I posted a call for Sundance and Slamdance filmmakers to send me information about their own DIY marketing and release plans. After the Sundance selection this week, many of its filmmakers are scrambling for publicists (Ted Hope has published a helpful list of indie film publicists here at his Truly Free Film blog) but others are also building up their own marketing infrastructure. One of those filmmakers is Mike Mohan, whose One Too Many Mornings is premiering in the new Next section. The film has an excellent blog containing posts from Mohan and his actors, including a […]

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 6, 2009 Filmmaking
So You Didn’t Get Into Sundance…

So you didn’t get into Sundance…. I’m sorry. Trust me, I feel your pain. As a producer I’ve received both the acceptance calls as well as the rejection ones. (Actually, the rejection call is sometimes not even a call, but a form email or letter.) In some cases, I’ve known that the film probably didn’t have much of a shot, although in others, the rejection came as a shock — one that threw our director and production team into a quandary over the film’s future direction. So, what do you do if your film didn’t get into Sundance? The first […]

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 5, 2009 Filmmaking
BEST OF DECADE: READERS’ CHOICE

So what’s your favorite film of the decade — Lost in Translation or There Will Be Blood? Who’s your favorite director — the Coen brothers or Steven Soderbergh? We want to hear what our readers feel was the best in American independent and specialty films in the 2000’s. Take our survey and the results will be printed in our upcoming Winter issue. And by taking the survey you’ll receive a discount code to half-off a print subscription. UPDATE: After you’ve done your survey, head over to our Forums where we created a Best of 2000’s section. Discuss the your favorites […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Dec 4, 2009 Filmmaking
UP IN THE AIR’s JASON REITMAN ON OUR LAYOFF ECONOMY

Although as I write this its Tomatometer is at 89%, Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air is something of a Rorschach test for critics, with some finding the film to be both canny and empathetic, a Hollywood picture calibrated for the emotional temperature of a country with a 10% unemployment rate. Others see its Hollywood sheen and evocation of the family as obviating the economic reality it is set against. (J. Hoberman of the Village Voice writes: “… a satire unsullied by anger, Up in the Air floats above the pain.” I am solidly in the “pro” camp, feeling that […]

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 3, 2009 Filmmaking

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