Filmmaking

BLOGGING FROM THE 2009 SKOLL WORLD FORUM

Today at the Said Business School at Oxford University, England, the 2009 Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship kicked off, and with this year’s edition comes a partnership between the Skoll Foundation and the Sundance Institute that sends four doc filmmakers to the forum. As the Skoll Foundation describes the conference, “Each year nearly 800 delegates from more than 60 countries convene for this premier gathering of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs. Prominent figures from the social, academic, finance, corporate and policy sectors engage for three days and nights in a series of debates, discussions and work sessions focused on […]

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 25, 2009 Filmmaking
WEILER, JOHNSON PREMIERE NEW "RADAR" SERIES ON BABELGUM

Premiering on Babelgum today is a new doc web series, “Radar,” created by a number of people familiar to readers of Filmmaker magazine. The Workbook Project’s Lance Weiler, whose “Culture Hacker” column will begin appearing in the next issue of Filmmaker, produces, Alex Johnson directs, and the d.p. is Tom Quinn, one of our “25 new Faces” for his feature The New Year’s Parade. The Workbook Projects Lab series looks at creators who are exploring new forms of storytelling in their work, and here’s what the series’ site says about the debut piece, “Next Door Neighbor”: We all have a […]

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 25, 2009 Filmmaking
SPIKE JONZE’S WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE FINALLY REVEALED

After too many months of rumors and studio-blogger back-and-forth, the trailer for Spike Jonze’s adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are has broken online, and it looks absolutely wonderful. The story involves an angry young boy who runs away to a land populated by giant beasts. In the two minutes of the trailer, which will premiere this weekend before Monsters vs. Aliens, there are costumes, Arcade Fire, great graphics and an authentic feeling of being young. The script was co-written by Dave Eggers and both he and Jonze, according to this USA Today piece, regularly contacted Sendak for […]

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 25, 2009 Filmmaking
ONLIVE GAME CONSOLE ABOUT TO GO LIVE

I was editing the next edition of “Game Engine,” Heather Chaplin’s game column in Filmmaker, and I started wondering where I could play some of the really interesting indie games she has been writing about. Of course, they are available on PS3 or Xbox for download, but that brought up the question for me of why can’t there be a console intended for games that don’t exist as disks but as downloads or streams? Well, today, voila, just such a console was announced. At Variety, Marc Graser was the first to announce the new OnLive, created by WebTV founder Steve […]

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 24, 2009 Filmmaking
LOOKING BACK ON MOVIE CRITICS

Over at our SXSW coverage page we are posting in the next few days a few straggler reviews and pieces. First up is Alicia Van Couvering’s talk with Gerald Peary about his For the Love of Movies: The History of American Film Criticism. Van Couvering gets Peary to talk about a number of issues echoing across the blogosphere these days, including, well, the blogosphere, but also the pressure to write shorter, the huge number of ex-critics, and, of course, the rivalry between the Paulettes and the Sarris-ites. A question about which camp he adheres to (A: Sarris) leads to this […]

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 24, 2009 Filmmaking
GARAGE MOVIE

Amy Taubin (and Manohla Dargis, J. Hoberman and Scott Foundas), you have truly penetrated the popular culture when you are namechecked in a Funny or Die video — in this case, the channel’s take on indie film and the m-word. (Although I doubt the film in question would garner these quotes from any of you…) The Dirty Garage – watch more funny videos

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 24, 2009 Filmmaking
TRIBECA FILM INSTITUTE ANNOUNCE PROJECTS FOR ALL ACCESS

Tribeca Film Institute today announced the selected projects for Tribeca All Access (TAA). TAA is designed to help foster and nurture relationships between film industry executives and filmmakers from traditionally underrepresented communities. Celebrating its sixth year, Tribeca All Access will present 27 new projects during the six-day event taking place April 20 – 25 during this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, held from April 22 – May 3. This year’s TAA jury is comprised of respected industry professionals – actors, writers, producers and directors – who will review script excerpts and work samples prior to the Festival, and deliberate over the […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Mar 23, 2009 Filmmaking
ALEXANDER THE LAST FILMMAKERS IN PERSON TONIGHT AT THE IFC

If you missed Joe Swanberg’s Alexander the Last on screen at SXSW last week (the only place, actually, where you could have seen iit on screen), then join Swanberg and stars Jess Weixler and Amy Seimetz at the IFC Center in New York tonight for what will be a rare public screening of the film. I say “rare” because the film is already screening on IFC’s On Demand and with that being the case many regional festivals will likely take a pass on the movie. Filmmaker‘s Alicia Van Couvering, who wrote for us in 2007 what I still think is […]

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 23, 2009 Filmmaking
NEW YORK FILM COMMUNITY MOBILIZES IN SUPPORT OF TAX CREDITS

As the clock winds down, members of the New York City film production community are lobbying hard for the continuation of the Empire State Film Production Tax Credit, which has supported a boom in film and television production in New York. Once financing is in place, film production companies can start on a dime, quickly crewing up and supporting local vendors, restaurants, hotels and other businesses. They often attract investment capital from outside the state and even outside the country, and they are swift tools of job creation. Furthermore, when it comes to television production, these jobs stay within the […]

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 23, 2009 Filmmaking
THOUGHTS ON FREE, DIGITAL FILM MARKETS, AND THE DEATH OF NEWSPAPERS

Kudos to Noah Harlan for braving the tape-recorded audio wilds of the breakfast conversation I took part in at SXSW this past week. At the festival CinemaTech’s Scott Kirsner gathered myself, Ted Hope, Lance Weiler, Brian Chirls, Liz Rosenthal, Brett Gaylor and Caitlin Boyle for a morning roundtable in which he asked us what had been on our mind while attending the festival. Each of us spoke for a few minutes and then there was a group discussion. As Harlan notes, the audio quality is poor, and I think an edited version, which I hope one of us can put […]

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 22, 2009 Filmmaking

Cookie	Duration	Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.

Cookie	Duration	Description
cfmrk_cic		Used by Cloudflare to route user traffic for this Site.
sparrow_id		Installed by Cloudflare. Used to identify individual clients behind a shared IP address and apply security settings on a per-client basis. It does not store any personal identifiable information.

Cookie	Duration	Description
OAGEO		Installed by the Revive Ad Server. Used to cache geolocation (session, deleted when closing the browser)
OAID		Installed by the Revive Ad Server to distinguish users.