Filmmaking

HEAVY TRAFFIC

Over at his 401st Blow blog, producer Noah Harlan, who has contributed posts to this blog on trends in film viewing and online video, takes his thinking a step further. He runs a bunch of Google Trend comparisons, measuring over the last few years the traffic associated with the terms “independent film,” “online video,” and “streaming video.” After reading the post, I emailed Noah some questions, which he incorporates into an updated version. From the blog: Scott Macaulay makes the very good point about units of comparison: “”Streaming video” and “online video” both refer to delivery mechanisms, whereas independent film […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 15, 2009 Filmmaking
GOOGLE BOOK SETTLEMENT NOTIFICATION BEGINS

If you keep up with this blog, you’ll have read a bunch about the Google Book Settlement and its implications for the future of copyright, the information age industry and creators’ rights in the digital realm. (Check out my previous posts.) This week Google issued its official notification to authors in a press release, reprinted below. (Hat tip: Digitization 101.) As Google has already indicated that similar endeavors may be planned using online video, I think filmmakers as well as authors should know something about the search giant’s plans. NEW YORK, Feb. 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Court-ordered process of officially […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 15, 2009 Filmmaking
REANIMATING KUBRICK — UNFOLDING THE ARYAN PAPERS

Thanks to Jamie Stuart for this link to Unfolding the Aryan Papers, a 17-minute short available online that is a riff on a planned but never made film by the late Stanley Kubrick. As the film is described on the site, “Unfolding the Aryan Papers is as much about a film that never happened as it is a portrait of the chosen lead actress Johanna ter Steege.” It was commissioned by Animate Projects and the BFI with the Stanley Kubrick Archives, University of the Arts London. From the artists’ statement: It begins with images of Johanna taken in 1993 by […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 15, 2009 Filmmaking
THINKING ABOUT (AND LISTENING TO) DATA PORTABILITY

Because our Winter, 2009 issue went up online during the Sundance Film Festival, I think some of what’s in it has been slightly overlooked by the blogosphere. One article I want to point you towards is Lance Weiler’s “Virtual Discovery.” It looks at some of the ways that creators are building audiences by embracing collaborative models of marketing and even production. Weiler also discusses the importance of data portability — the ability for filmmakers to take the aggregated info about their audiences from online platform to online platform. Why is this important? From the piece: The real strength of data […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 15, 2009 Filmmaking
GONDRY FANS, SET YOUR TIVO’S

Fans of Michel Gondry should tune in to HBO tonight, February 15, for “Unnatural Love,” the episode of Flight of the Conchords he directed. Calling the show “pure, unadulterated pleasure,” the newsletter Very Short List writes, “The Conchords, of course, are a New Zealand folk band. But the love interest here is Australian, and that allows for endless, over-the-top Aussie jokes (expect plenty of references to the continent’s criminal past). As for Gondry, his distinctive, dreamlike touch turns both of the episode’s musical numbers into surreal showstoppers.”

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 15, 2009 Filmmaking
SITA SINGS THE BLUES TO PLAY ON WNET AND ONLINE

Following its Gotham Award and the week of the Spirit Awards, for which its director, Nina Paley, was nominated for the Someone to Watch Award, Sita Sings the Blues scores a Sunday New York Times feature article by Margy Rochlin. In the piece, Rochlin discusses watching the film when it played the San Francisco International Animation Festival and talking with Paley afterwards, a talk that reveals that the film will play on PBS next month. After the final credits rolled, the gangly, curly-haired Ms. Paley bounded onstage and announced, “You’ve all just participated in an illegal act.’ ” Though Ms. […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 14, 2009 Filmmaking
TOM TYKWER AND THE PARANOID TRADITION

On the main page, Nick Dawson interviews The International director Tom Tykwer, and here they discuss one of my favorite sub-genres: the paranoid thriller. Filmmaker: You’ve said that you’re a movie maniac, so what were you influences for this film? You talked about paranoia and the thrillers of the 70s come to mind, especially those of Alan J. Pakula. Tykwer: Pakula obviously is probably the quintessential filmmaker for what we would call the paranoia drama. Even though it’s not so obviously politically related, even a film like Klute has that vibe where there’s an uncertainty. There’s a feeling that Jane […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 13, 2009 Filmmaking
NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS ’09 SLATE ANNOUNCED

The line up for this year’s New Directors/New Films was announced moments ago. The opening film will be Cherien Dabis’s Amreeka and Lee Daniels’s Sundance Grand Jury Prize winning film Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire is the closing film. The full list of titles are below. ND/NF will be held at NYC’s Museum of Modern Art and The Film Society of Lincoln Center March 25 – April 5. OPENING NIGHT Amreeka Cherien Dabis, USA/Canada/Kuwait, 2009; 96m Cherien Dabis’s humanist miracle of a first film chronicles the bittersweet adjustment to a multicultural way of life after Muna, a single […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Feb 12, 2009 Filmmaking
TARANTINO, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

Hmmm… Comments?

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 11, 2009 Filmmaking
GETTING THINGS DONE WITH GMAIL

In the last few months I’ve talked a few producers who have been reading Dave Allen’s Getting Things Done, the productivity manual. I read it a couple of years ago and by no means have adopted all of its recommendations. (A couple of things in it — the Two Minute Rule and thinking of the Next Action — are useful.) One problem is that it’s too paper-oriented for me. But in the years since its publication, a number of sites have run with its ideas and come up with systems to integrate them into the Palm Pilot, Blackberry, etc. I […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 10, 2009 Filmmaking

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