Filmmaking

CHRIS CUNNINGHAM’S GUCCI "LOVE"

In the last week I’ve had two “what’s going on with Chris Cunningham?” conversations. The insanely talented director was the subject of one of Palm’s “Director Label” disks and released his Rubber Johnny short in 2005, but hasn’t been heard from much since. This spot for Gucci featuring Cunningham’s own Donna Summers “I Feel Love” remix is only 30 seconds long, but it’s pretty beautiful and serves, I guess, as our Cunningham fix of the moment. (Note: the clip on the Gucci site is shorter and of better quality than the clip below. I recommend watching it first.) After viewing […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 14, 2009 Filmmaking
MARCUS HU REMEMBERS WOUTER BARENDRECHT

If you haven’t read Marcus Hu’s remembrance of Wouter Barendrecht, who died unexpectedly last week, over at Indiewire, I highly recommend that you do so. Marcus lovingly captures Wouter’s charm, irreverence, and warmth, and the piece’s headline — “Wouter Barendrecht: A Family Man” — speaks to his ability to make what some people view as just a business instead a global sharing among friends and colleagues. Marcus opens: Wouter cared deeply for his friends and cherished them. His wonderful group dinners were his expression of embracing us, not as work colleagues, but as family. The Fortissimo family he designed with […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 14, 2009 Filmmaking
SIMON CHANNING WILLIAMS, 1945 – 2009

Simon Channing Williams, one of the towering figures in British cinema, died Sunday of cancer. Williams was best known as Mike Leigh’s producer and his partner in Thin Man Films, their production company. Commented Leigh in The Guardian, “”He was a natural-born producer, a great leader, always an enabler, a protector; never a dictator or an interferer. Infinitely generous, his life was all about doing things for people, and bringing out the best in everybody. He was the ultimate fixer, and a phenomenal organiser. He relished the impossible challenge, and loved the cut-and-thrust of negotiations, at which he was a […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 14, 2009 Filmmaking
LINDSAY LOHAN’S HOLLYWOOD TALKBACK

I wonder what the Hollywood gossip queens of old, the Hedda Hoppers of their day, would think about celebrity scandal in era of Twitter, Facebook and Funny or Die, which is becoming expert at the celebrity instant-response genre. The following clip, written by Owen Burke, directed by Eric Appel and riffing on Lindsay Lohan’s current “I’m So Alone” Us cover, is funny but also not without an emotional edge. Lindsay Lohan’s eHarmony Profile from Lindsay Lohan

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 14, 2009 Filmmaking
A CABIN IN THE WOODS… LARS VON TRIERS’ LATEST

A cabin in the woods, fog, a creepy, Rosemary’s Baby-type vibe, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Willem Dafoe, and gorgeous, painterly photography from Anthony Dod Mantle — this trailer for Lars Von Triers’ upcoming Anti Christ looks great to me. The Cannes list isn’t out yet, but I’d be very surprised if this isn’t on it. Lars von Trier’s Antichrist – Official Trailer from Zentropa on Vimeo.

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 14, 2009 Filmmaking
SWEETHEARTS AT SXSW

Head over to Festival Ambassador to see Bradley Beesley‘s photo diary he did for us using the Nokia N95 while at SXSW premiering his latest film Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo. Here’s the synopsis from the SXSW cataloge:Filmmaker Bradley Beesley visits and explores an oddball American phenomenon: that of the prison rodeo. He journeys with his cameras to Oklahoma State Prison – the only remaining U.S. prison rodeo that is actually located on penitentiary grounds – and watches, cameras rolling, as ill-prepared male and female convicts risk their lives for the promise of cash and a brief spotlight. And to […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Apr 13, 2009 Filmmaking
PAGING OSHA!!!

According to Boing Boing, the following short film, entitled “Will You Be Here Tomorrow?”, is an actual workplace safety video. If so, I wasn’t aware that there was a gory sub-genre of the eductional genre in which budding Tom Savini’s can practice their craft. The comments thread following has several posts that fill out the filmography, with the second clip being an artier German film entitled “Staplefhrer Klaus,” and the third a 1983 film called “The Thrill Seekers.”

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 10, 2009 Filmmaking
SO YOU THINK AGENTING IS EASY?

Via Everything Unfinished, the blog over at Identity Theory, comes an interesting post on the law of supply and demand, marketability, and the Darwinian nature of the marketplace. The discussion is prompted by a post on Curtis Brown literary agent Nathan Bransford’s blog, and it’s about the world of book publishing, but it’s not hard to extrapolate the data and apply it to the world of film and screenplay representation. On Monday Bransford is beginning a contest that is inspired by all the grumbling he’s heard from writers who complain that agents don’t respond to queries. Bransford will be posting […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 10, 2009 Filmmaking
JEREMIAH ZAGAR’S IN A DREAM OPENS IN NYC

Opening today in New York at the Cinema Village is Jeremiah Zagar’s documentary In a Dream, which is a fascinating story of artistic obsession and its effects on an entire Philadelphia family. In our current issue, which is just coming off the newsstands, Lauren Wissot interviewed not only Zagar but his longtime producer Jeremy Yaches and their executive producers Pamela Tanner Boll and Geralyn White Dreyfous. Here is a brief excerpt: Filmmaker: I know that Jeremiah is a big fan of Errol Morris, and that definitely comes through in In a Dream. Are there other films or books or works […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 10, 2009 Filmmaking
GEOFF GILMORE ON HIS TRIBECA ORIENTATION

With the Tribeca Film Festival less than two weeks away, its new Chief Creative Officer Geoff Gilmore posts on Tribeca’s website an essay on his orientation as well as the festival’s — and independent film’s — future. Here’s how he opens: I’ve been at Tribeca for almost a month now, so I guess I can’t claim that I’m still completely frazzled or barely able to follow the complexities of morning staff meetings. Every institution is different, of course, and the familiarity I have with the arenas of independent and global film after nineteen years of operating inside these realms is […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 9, 2009 Filmmaking

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