Filmmaking

TIPS FROM THE PRO’S ON PACKAGING AND PITCHING YOUR PROJECT

Entertainment attorney Steven Beer of Greenberg, Traurig prepared the below in advance of his presentation this weekend at the IFP’s Script to Screen conference, and he was kind enough to let the blog publish it. For those attending the conference, Beer will discuss these points further tomorrow at the New York Film Academy, 100 East 17th Street, New York, New York 10003. The “Tips from the Pros” panel will be on Sunday, March 8, 2009 from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. I am excited to address this topic. From my experience, not enough attention is paid to packaging and pitching […]

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 7, 2009 Filmmaking
A CHANCE ENCOUNTER BETWEEN BLAINE AND PETIT

Philippe Petit’s brief bit of coin sleight-of-hand and Oscar chin-balancing when James Marsh’s Man on Wire won the Oscar was one of the more entertaining moments at this year’s Academy Awards. Now, on his website, New York magician David Blaine posts a video of a kind of magical face-off that occurred when he ran into the French tightrope-walker on the street.

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 6, 2009 Filmmaking
RACHEL/SYNECDOCHE CONTEST

With two of our favorites, Rachel Getting Married and Synecdoche, New York, coming out on Blu-Ray and DVD next Tuesday, we’re going to hold a contest with the first person to e-mail us the correct answers to our questions receiving a Blu-Ray or DVD of the films. Check back to the blog next Tuesday at 12:00pm (EST) for the questions. (DISCLAIMER: Contest is only available for those living in the U.S.) The answers will be found in our stories on the films in the Fall, 2008 issue. We are only giving away 1 Blu-Ray and DVD for each film.

By Jason Guerrasio on Mar 6, 2009 Filmmaking
WHAT ARE THE INDIE NUMBERS?

“Everything is over 6” — meaning budgeted millions — “or under 1,” a producer friend says. “There are no 3s.” “Everything’s 3 now,” an agent counters in an unrelated conversation. “3 is the new ‘6 – 8.’” “1 – 3 is impossible — it’s the union/non-union no-man’s land,” I paraphrase another producing friend. Meanwhile, more than one financier says to me, “1.2 is the number.” How to keep it all straight?

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 5, 2009 Filmmaking
MIRANDA JULY AT THE RUBIN (AND THE CHELSEA)

In addition to a spectacular weekend of New York City movie-viewing opportunities, which Michael Tully has thoughtfully laid out for you at Hammer to Nail, the writer/director/artist/performer Miranda July will be participating in the second annual Brainwave Festival at the Rubin Museum in Chelsea. July will be joining a line-up that includes Paul Simon, Lewis Black, Darren Aronofsky, Eric Fischl, Mario Battali, Tom Wolfe and Laurie Anderson. The various talks and presentations all, according to the website, deal with “intersection of mind and matter” and many pair artists with neuroscientists. July’s event, which takes place Saturday, March 7, at 6pm, […]

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 5, 2009 Filmmaking
DIGITAL CLOUDBUSTING

If you believe in the trend presaged by this week’s rumble between Facebook and Twitter (briefly, after failing to buy the microblogging service, Facebook is redesigning its home page to incorporate more of the immediate news and info-streaming features that Twitter has made popular), then we are moving towards an always-on, always-connected social reality. We will no longer “log on” or “check our email.” Bytes of data will be like air, a digital cloud the intake of which we won’t really think about. Of the Facebook change, CEO Mark Zuckerberg says, “As people share more, the timeline gets filled in […]

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 5, 2009 Filmmaking
MICHEL GONDRY ON THE INTERNET’S STRANGE CREVICES

There’s a superb interview with Michel Gondry by Nick Bradshaw up on The Guardian’s film page. It’s great because what starts off as a straightforward dialogue about Gondry’s judging of a short online film competition for Babelgum riffs off into a wide-ranging discourse on the problems with contests, censorship vs. self-censorship, the siren call of the web’s dark places, the challenges involved in music video creation, and why his short Rubik’s cube videos got him more props from Kevin Spacey than Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. An excerpt: I think you should be able to censor yourself. If you […]

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 3, 2009 Filmmaking
PANASONIC’S NEW 24P-HD STILL/VIDEO CAMERA

Via the PrepShootPost blog comes news of the Panasonic new Lumix DMC-GH1, which is the latest in the new still cameras that have great video recording capabilities. From the blog’s Eric Escobar: Pretty awesome next generation HDSLR hybrid still/ video camera from Panasonic (f’ yeah Panasonic!). Shoots 1080P/24 and 720P/60, if it’s priced like it’s predecessor expect it to be for around US$1200 with a standard zoom lens. And it’s got way more options for manual controls in video mode than the Canon or the Nikon. Click to his blog post for an update with a few relevant details (like […]

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 3, 2009 Filmmaking
A PIRATE IN THE COURTROOM

Via Boing Boing comes this info-age definition of chutzpah: one of the owners of P2P site The Pirate Bay, currently on trial in Stockholm for “complicity to making copyrighted material accessible,” fixed a server problem on the site remotely from the courtroom by using his laptop while his lawyer was making arguments. From the post: Thepiratebay.org was down during the best part of Monday, which had a good deal of file-sharing folks worried that the website might be down for good this time. Thankfully for them, he had his trusty laptop at hand and could restart the server remotely, so […]

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 3, 2009 Filmmaking
TRIBECA ’09 TO OPEN WITH ALLEN’S WHATEVER WORKS

After a four year absence from shooting in his beloved New York City, Woody Allen‘s latest film Whatever Works — starring Larry David, Evan Rachel Wood, Patricia Clarkson and Ed Begley Jr — will open this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. In a press release sent out today, the festival announced the film, which will be released by Sony Pictures Classics in the summer, will screen at the festival on April 22. The festival will run from April 22 – May 3.

By Jason Guerrasio on Mar 2, 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.