Filmmaking

SCOTT KIRSNER AT CES

I was hoping to find someone to cover CES this year but struck out. (If you are a Filmmaker reader attending and would like to send some comments from the point-of-view of an independent filmmaker, you can email me at editor.filmmaker AT gmail.com.) However, discovering Scott Kirsner’s CES blog at Variety is, for me, the next best thing to having a correspondent there. I interviewed Scott in the last issue of the magazine, and over at the Variety blog he files commentary in his own patented fusion of tech coverage and industry business analysis. Among the topics: a predicted explosion […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 9, 2009 Filmmaking
THE WHOPPER AS A UNIT OF CURRENCY

I am empowering Burger King’s pernicious viral marketing campaign, which I linked to below, even further by quoting this blog from Kottke.org, in which Jason Kottke uses the mathematics behind the campaign to come up with a valuation for Facebook that is lower than the valuation Microsoft used when they invested in the company. (Getting people like me to blog about a fast food product seems to have been the whole point of the campaign.) You see, if each Whopper costs $2.40, and there are 150 million users on Facebook, but some of them live overseas and are ineligible… well, […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 9, 2009 Filmmaking
FILMMAKER ON FACEBOOK NETWORKED BLOGS

This blog will be broadcast via this new Facebook app… as soon as four more of you confirm that I am indeed one of the authors. Please click here and visit the page if you are on Facebook.

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 9, 2009 Filmmaking
WATCHING THE WATCHMEN

I’ve blogged before about the legal saga surrounding The Watchmen, which is the film news world equivalent of a slow-motion car crash. If you’re a producer, the idea that your film could be held hostage after its completion due to legal issues is the ultimate nightmare. One of the film’s producers, Lloyd Levin, has written an open letter that is posted over at Drew McWeeny’s new blog, Hitfix. An excerpt: One reason the movie was made was because Warner Brothers spent the time, effort and money to engage with and develop the project. If Watchmen was at Fox the decision […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 9, 2009 Filmmaking
OUTSIDE THE (WHOPPER) BOX

Now here is outside-the-box, appealingly anti-social advertising. From Burger King comes the Whopper Sacrifice campaign, described here in Ad Week: It’s a common problem for anyone who joined Facebook some time ago. You look at your friend list and wonder who these people are. Burger King wants to help consumers do something about it. The fast-food chain has released the Whopper Sacrifice application on Facebook. The app rewards people with a coupon for BK’s signature burger when they cull 10 friends. Each time a friend is excommunicated, the application sends a notification to the banished party via Facebook’s news feed […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 8, 2009 Filmmaking
SUNDANCE SANS CHECKBOOKS

“What if Sundance isn’t about the sales anymore?” asks Stephen Zeitchik in a Hollywood Reporter piece that’s worth reading for its take on the festival and the current acquisitions market. In it he mentions several films that are screening directly for executives instead of heading towards Park City, and he summons up the following vision of the festival (which is a lot like how it used to be a long time ago): But what these breakouts show is that the fest’s main value might now lie in the classic indie model, in which little money is spent and little is […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 8, 2009 Filmmaking
FINDING YOUR VOICE (AND BUDGET) AT NETFLIX

From a press release I just received from Film Independent: Today Film Independent and Netflix announced the immediate launch of the Netflix FIND Your Voice Film Competition, which will award one aspiring first-time feature filmmaker the means, guidance and resources to make a full-length, narrative film. The winner of the competition, who will own all rights to his or her film, will be determined between now and July 2009. In addition to production resources needed to make the film, the winner will receive a $150,000 cash production grant funded by Netflix, plus turnkey resources like film stock, processing, camera rental, […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 8, 2009 Filmmaking
PREDICTING A NEW, SMOOTHER INDIE CINEMA

Below I posted John August’s take on the new iMovie HD, introduced this week at Macworld Expo. Now, the New York Times‘ David Pogue weighs in. He’s mixed/positive on the update, saying that it fixes some of the previous version’s deficiencies while ignoring others. But while most filmmakers don’t use this consumer-level application, I can’t help but think that one new iMovie development may reshape some no-budget filmmakers’ creative arsenals: Now, longtime readers may recall that I absolutely hated iMovie ’08. It wasn’t iMovie at all; Apple completely junked the beloved iMovie that had served it well for years, and […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 8, 2009 Filmmaking
DINNER AND A MOVIE?

If you’d like to impress your date with your taste and erudition — and thumb your nose at all your downsizing friends — you can buy a pair of tickets to what is the toniest movie fundraiser ever. From Quintessentially.com: The Alloy Theater Company will present a stunning recreation of one of the most amazing classical menus ever created, featuring the most decadent tastes from late 19th century Paris, and immortalized in the Academy Award-winning film Babette’s Feast, at Thomas Keller’s world-renowned Per Se restaurant. Taking place on Friday, January 9 at Per Se (10 Columbus Circle), Keller’s interpretation of […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 8, 2009 Filmmaking
PREVIEWING THE GREATEST

This year we placed Shana Feste, writer/director of the Sundance Competition film The Greatest on our 25 New Faces list. Now, via Variety, is a preview clip from her film.

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 8, 2009 Filmmaking

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