Filmmaking

55,000 VIDEOS IN SEARCH OF A GOOD HOME

Via Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York blog comes this sad notice: the East Village’s Mondo Kim’s will be closing, and Mr. Kim is searching for some organization to take the store’s collection of 55,000 videos. (Hat tip: Movie City News.) From the blog: In posters on display at Mondo Kim’s, he writes to say that, due to “rapidly declined” financial resources, he is seeking a sponsor to take on his entire collection of 55,000 films. The flyer goes on to say that he plans to close the rental department of his business and hopes to ensure that the collection will still […]

By Scott Macaulay on Oct 14, 2008 Filmmaking
WEATHER UNDERGROUND DIRECTOR ON BILL AYRES

“One truism of being a documentary filmmaker is that your subjects often continue to make news long after your film has wrapped and is widely seen,” writes AJ. Schnack at his All These Wonderful Things blog. “Kicking off a new feature here at the blog, Sam Green, the co-director of the Oscar-nominated THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND, writes about Ayers’ return to prominence and the mixed feelings it provokes for the director.” What follows are Green’s thoughts about Ayres, who he got to know through the making of his documentary, his sudden emergence as an issue in the Presidential campaign, and both […]

By Scott Macaulay on Oct 14, 2008 Filmmaking
MARTESKO-FENSTER JOINS BABELGUM

Congrats to my old friend and colleague, Karol Martesko-Fenster, founding publisher of Filmmaker and co-founder of Indiewire on his new position at Babelgum, the ad-supported internet TV platform. From the press release: Babelgum, the free independent web TV platform, today announced the appointment of Karol Martesko-Fenster as General Manager & Publisher of thecompany’s Film Division. Martesko-Fenster will oversee allaspects of the film offering on Babelgum, expanding programming acquisitions and partnerships and global film industry and festival activities. Karol will also assume the role of Managing Director of theannual Babelgum Online Film Festival working closely with creator Stefania Valenti and Jury […]

By Scott Macaulay on Oct 13, 2008 Filmmaking
KIRSNER REPORTS FROM THE DOC VANGUARD

CinemaTech’s Scott Kirsner sent me an email alerting me to a really interesting project he’s done with ITVS. From his email: Earlier this year, ITVS asked me to interview a group of documentary filmmakers who were working on the vanguard. Specifically, we wanted to focus on three things: 1. Opening up production in new ways, communicating and collaborating with the audience while a film is still in the works. 2. Distributing in new ways, through avenues like iTunes or downloads on a filmmaker’s own Web site 3. Marketing and cultivating an audience for the work in new ways, and figuring […]

By Scott Macaulay on Oct 13, 2008 Filmmaking
HOLLY WOODLAWN, OFF CAMERA

CineVegas programmer and Filmmaker contributor Mike Plante writes: “Not sure why the Off Camera festival in Krakow has gone so unnoticed in the US, maybe because it’s first time and in an unknown city – but I went and it was great, all the filmmakers and jury had a blast, and they give out 100,000 Euros in their competition. Probably the biggest prize of any festival?” Off Camera was off my radar as well, but I just checked out Mike’s blog postings and they detail a spirited fest with a good, artistically attuned line-up. Here’s his account of Holly Woodlawn […]

By Scott Macaulay on Oct 13, 2008 Filmmaking
CONGRATS TO PAUL KRUGMAN

Not film related (not, that is, if you don’t think the general economy has anything to do with film production, studio or independent), but congrats to Paul Krugman for his Nobel Prize in Economics, announced today. Today in the NY Times he asks whether British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has saved the world economy. That topic is also discussed by screenwriter Howard Rodman (Savage Grace) in his Huffington Post blog titled “Hank and the Swedish Model.” (That’s “Hank” as in “Paulson”).

By Scott Macaulay on Oct 13, 2008 Filmmaking
THE CONCLUSION OF JAMIE STUART’S NYFF46

Here’s Stuart, Mickey Rourke, and the conclusion of this year’s series. Be back in a year for NYFF47.

By Scott Macaulay on Oct 13, 2008 Filmmaking
$27,117,737

This is the amount producers of David Fincher‘s upcoming film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button will receive by cashing or selling off tax credits in Louisiana according to The New York Times today. It’s no secret that for the last five years or so many states have been welcoming films with enticing tax incentives to keep them from packing up their sets and heading up north to Canada. It worked, but with the current economic climate (and some shaddy dealings) many states are beginning to rethink their incentive plan. An excerpt from the NYT piece: As the number of […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Oct 12, 2008 Filmmaking
iPHONE APP CALCULATES FILM FOOTAGE, HARD DRIVE SPACE

Producer Noah Harlan of 2.1 Films sent us news of his latest production: an iPhone app. Entitled the 2.1 Film Calculator, it “is a multi-purpose tool for filmmakers to aid in common tasks of film conversion and counting in pre-production, production and post-production.” From the site: Film Calculator has three basic functions: Length & Time Converter: This function allows the user quickly convert length to time and vice versa for a variety of film stocks and speeds. Choose from Super-8mm, 16mm, 35mm or 70mm stocks and preset frames per second rates (12, 24, 25, 48) or enter your own. Then […]

By Scott Macaulay on Oct 12, 2008 Filmmaking
LAWRENCE LESSIG’S 5-POINT COPYRIGHT LAW PLAN

Lawrence Lessig has a new book coming out this week entitled Remix, published by Penguin Press. It’s excerpted/adapted in the Wall Street Journal today; in the piece, Lessig argues that current copyright law is outdated and counterproduction, stifling both creativity and economic progress. An excerpt: The return of this “remix” culture could drive extraordinary economic growth, if encouraged, and properly balanced. It could return our culture to a practice that has marked every culture in human history — save a few in the developed world for much of the 20th century — where many create as well as consume. And […]

By Scott Macaulay on Oct 12, 2008 Filmmaking

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