Filmmaking

SODERBERGH @ ZIEGFIELD TONIGHT

IFC begins their Roadshow edition of Steven Soderbergh‘s Che tonight in NYC and L.A. Tonight at New York’s Ziegfield Theater Soderbergh will be in attendance to do a Q&A. A special program will also be given out. If you haven’t read our piece on Che‘s Red camera workflow, you may want to check it out if you’re going tonight. You’ll find a new appreciation for the gorgeous images you’ll see on screen. I also chatted with Soderbergh in the Fall issue (which you can read right now by subscribing to our digital issue).

By Jason Guerrasio on Dec 12, 2008 Filmmaking
INDIE FILM IS STILL DYING

Another piece on the demise of our favorite art form, this time titled “The Death of Indie Film as a Business Model” and found at Mike Curtis’s HD for Indies blog. It’s all there — the Gill speech, overcrowded theaters, uninspiring films, the high cost of marketing, piracy, the high cost of film school, the Darwinian acquisitions environment. Curtis’s piece is already generating a nice comments thread with the first poster, sean90291, offering some reasons why he’d rather pay $5 to see Ballast at home than see it at a theater where the screen is “the size of my plasma […]

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 11, 2008 Filmmaking
THE DAILY GRIND

Daily Routines is an inspiring little blog that reports on the daily routines of various artists, writers, thinkers and public figures. The site culls its short entries from biographies, interviews and printed sources. Here’s the daily routine of writer Haruki Murakami: When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at 4:00 am and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for 10km or swim for 1500m (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at 9:00 pm. I keep to this routine every day […]

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 10, 2008 Filmmaking
WHAT ONLINE VIDEO SERVICE LOOKS THE BEST?

Okay, you’ve finally gotten around to accepting that something from your film — a trailer, some clips, whatever — should be online. But you’re the kind of person who cringes when the bulb is a little dim in the theater, or when the masking is askew, so you’d like it look good. And, yes, you think a lot of online video looks like crap. This link (hat-tipped to Noah Harlan) is for you. Over at Techvideoblog, Charbax compares the measurements, frame rates and audio qualities of all the sites offering HD video right now, including YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook.

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 8, 2008 Filmmaking
CONTENT, FORM AND CHANGE

Virginia Heffernan’s column in the Sunday Times Magazine this week, titled “Content and its Discontents,” is a must-read, concise summation of the issues facing content creators today. (Yes, that means you, filmmakers.) What I like about the piece is that it deals with not only content but form, and, particularly, how it acknowledges the relationship between the form a piece of content is embodied within and the method by which it is delivered and, particularly, advertised. She discusses how, for example, a magazine article on volunteerism is shaped by not only the perceived reader base of its audience but also […]

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 7, 2008 Filmmaking
REACTIONS TO THE GOOGLE BOOK SETTLEMENT

Below I posted a piece about the settlement Google recently made with authors and publishers involving the scanning of out-of-print books. The chief link was to a program on KCRW’s “The Politics of Culture” that discussed the legal implications of the settlement. Now on Today’s Zaman is a piece entitled “Google revolution the end of the publishing world?” It’s a collection of responses from key critics and editors about the effect of the settlement, and the key take away seems to be “good for readers, good for authors, bad for used-book stores and complicated for the ‘information wants to be […]

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 6, 2008 Filmmaking
SODERBERGH ON THE RED

Steven Soderbergh and his RED camera-shot Che is our cover story this month, and here, MovieCityIndie’s Ray Pride captures three minutes of the director talking about his work with the camera. Check it out… … and also check out Brian Chirls’s piece on Che‘s post-production in the current issue online.

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 5, 2008 Filmmaking
EXAMINING THE GOOGLE BOOK SETTLEMENT

This doesn’t have to do with film per se, but this podcast dealing with book copyright in the digital realm is an interesting listen, especially when one wonders if, for example, the AMPTP and Google could work out the kind of agreement that book publishers have worked out with the internet search giant. It’s from KCRW’s “Politics of Culture.” Host Jonathan Kirsch, an attorney specializing in intellectual property and publishing law, moderates a panel discussion on a landmark literary-legal settlement. It allows Google to scan and make available online many out-of-print but still-copyrighted books. The settlement portends a viable digital […]

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 5, 2008 Filmmaking
NEW BLOGS AND FILM SITES

Four interesting film sites and blogs have crossed my screen in the last few days. The first is indie producer Jane Kosek’s All About Indie Filmmaking blog. (Kosek’s producer site, Wonder Entertainment, can be visited here.) In an email she writes about the blog: It’s unique as it is geared primarily toward educating others about filmmaking. I find most popular film blogs are very specific toward an audience who knows a great deal about the industry or they discuss specific movies. I am hoping my blog helps people at all levels learn more about the industry. Perhaps if there is […]

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 4, 2008 Filmmaking
HOLIDAY PROMOTION

In the New World of independent film distribution, filmmakers everywhere are having to adjust and rethink their release plans, throwing away old concepts like shepherding their film through an orderly tiered set of windows. One director, James C. Ferguson, is releasing his film in a number of different ways all around the holiday season. Appropriately, his film is called Happy Holidays and it’s described as a “small, Woody Allen-y, people-in-rooms-talking film about tolerance.” Ferguson described his journey in an email to the blog: Like so many filmmakers before me, HAPPY HOLIDAYS arose from the ashes of another failed project. We […]

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 4, 2008 Filmmaking

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