Filmmaking

LIGHTS OUT FOR NEW YORK CITY

Filmmaker Ian Cheney, co-producer of King Corn, and director of the forthcoming The City Dark, and Emily Bolevice, a teacher and freelance photographer, have created a lovely video op-ed for the New York Times. It argues that the city should cut back on the night lighting of public buildings as a way of dealing with the coming budget gap, and it is illustrated with beautiful night-time photography of the city. The City Dark is a feature dealing with the fascinating subject of light pollution. For more on the movie click on the link. The Times video is not embeddable, so […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 24, 2008 Filmmaking
Director Randall Sharp on Henry May Long

The Talented Mr. Ripley by way of Somerset Maugham, Henry May Long is a drama about two men, Henry May and Henry Long, set in the upper crust and under belly of 1887 New York City. Long is obsessed with the golden child May, and via constant surveillance has come to know his secret debt and drug addiction. He convinces May to care for him for three months, as an illness takes his toll, in exchange for money to repay May’s debts. Hiding out, along together, their friendship expands and May begins to find meaning in his own limited life […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Nov 24, 2008 Directing
ANTONIO CAMPOS ON AFTERSCHOOL

For the final artist statement in our check-in with the “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You” directors, whose pictures can be seen at MOMA this weekend, here is what Afterschool director Antonio Campos emailed to the blog. (Afterschool plays tomorrow at 5:30pm). I also point you towards BFNP juror Brandon Harris’s compelling argument for the film over at Hammer to Nail. An excerpt: Afterschool is a movie not unlike so many punky, fishnet wearing, Sartre reading high school students; the type you don’t often encounter in this kind of picture. Like that tired cliché for transitory and […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 22, 2008 Filmmaking
CATHERINE HARDWICKE ON TWILIGHT

At Filmmaker, we like to keep up with the directors who we have supported early in their careers. Back in Summer, 2003, we placed Catherine Hardwicke’s Thirteen on the cover. Now, three films and five years later, she is at the helm of a genuine pop-cult phenomenon: Twilight, adapted from Stephanie Meyer’s best-selling teen novels. Over in our web exclusives, Alicia Van Couvering catches up with Hardwicke on the eve of the film’s release and discusses things like teenage lust, vampires on jet-skis, casting Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, and how you could always use a little more money. An […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 21, 2008 Filmmaking
Director Catherine Hardwicke on Twilight

All of Catherine Hardwicke’s four feature films – Thirteen, The Lords of Dogtown, The Nativity Story and now Twilight – have been about teenagers. They have also all been about real people, and all but Thirteen cover stories and characters already known to the public. Twilight is a teen vampire love story based faithfully on the Stephanie Meyer’s book trilogy, starring Kristen Stewart as the human Bella and Robert Pattison as the “vegetarian” vampire Edward Cullen who loves her too much to bite her. The books are coveted and obsessed over by young girls across this country, who are assembling in […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Nov 21, 2008 Directing
TAYLOR GREESON ON MEADOWLARK

Taylor Greeson’s Meadowlark was a happy discovery for me while sitting on this year’s “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You” Gotham Award panel. I didn’t know Greeson and hadn’t heard of his film. But I, along with the panel, responded to his formally ambitious mixture of crime-reconstruction film and personal documentary. Here’s the program note. “When I was twelve years old, my brother was murdered, I lost my virginity to a twenty-year-old man, and I was ordained with the priesthood in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.” So begins Meadowlark, Taylor Greeson’s quietly devastating […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 20, 2008 Filmmaking
JAKE MAHAFFY ON WELLNESS

Jake Mahaffy is one of my favorite filmmakers in this week’s “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You” series this week at MOMA. We selected him as one of our “25 New Faces” in 2005, and I’ve watched his shorts and his Sundance Lab project with interest since. His second feature, Wellness, won the Grand Prize at SXSW this year, and its emotional, political and spiritual themes only become more relevant by the day. Mike Ryan beautifully wrote about the film at Hammer to Nail. An excerpt: One of our greatest American philosophers, William James, writes about the […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 20, 2008 Filmmaking
SHOOTING PEOPLE TURNS 10

Celebrating their 10th anniversary this weekend, the filmmaking network site Shooting People is currently doing a discounted membership deal if you sign up before Dec. 10. More here: All independent filmmakers get a present from Shooting People between November 10 and December 10: anyone who joins will receive a bonus ten weeks Membership, 62 weeks for the price of 52. One member a day will receive a birthday present from Shooting People, which range from a AVID training package and a Short Film Training weekend from Met Film School, to film magazine subscriptions, and DVDs of independent feature films. Shooting […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Nov 20, 2008 Filmmaking
SUNDANCE ’09 OPENS WITH MARY and MAX

The Sundance Institute announced today that they will be opening the 25th Sundance Film Festival with the world premiere of the clay animation film, Mary and Max. Directed by Academy Award-winning short filmmakers Adam Elliot and producer Melanie Coombs (Harvie Krumpet), actors Philip Seymour Hoffman and Toni Collette lend their voices to the film and is narrated by Barry Humphries. From the press release: Mary and Max is the tale of two unlikely pen pals: Mary, a lonely, eight-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max, a forty-four-year old, severely obese man living in New York. The story […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Nov 19, 2008 Filmmaking
INDIES BEHIND THE CAMERA AT SNL

SNL this weekend featured a short film directed by Noah Baumbach and starring the show’s guest host, Paul Rudd, whose very funny Role Models is in theaters now. Costarring Fred Armisen and Bill Hader, upcoming in Greg Mottola’s Adventureland, the film, says Karina Longworth at Spout, is “a cute bit of bromance,” but it’s also a kind of a small-screen mumblecore/indie film reunion. Joe Swanberg, whose in-post feature, Alexander the Last, was produced by Baumbach, was the d.p.; fellow Alexander producer Anish Savjani (Wendy and Lucy) produced; Swanberg and writer/director/actress Amy Seimetz operated the camera; and Guatemalan Handshake director Todd […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 18, 2008 Filmmaking

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