Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Woodsrider: On Three Rainy Weeks Filming on Oregon’s Snowy Mt. Hood
In 2014 I shot a documentary in roughly three weeks. It took place exclusively in the small town of Government Camp, OR, the closest feeder village to the Mt. Hood ski resorts of Timberline, Mt Hood Meadows and Skibowl. I had cast 19-year old Sadie Ford as the lead character. She responded to a flyer I posted at the Govy Market searching for someone who ticked off my boxes: Sadie was a passionate snowboarder (not a pro), planning to live on the mountain full-time for the winter season, and was willing to let me follow her around with a camera. […]
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Valuable Mistakes of a First Time Film Editor
In 2007, I wrote, produced and directed a microbudget feature film called Jackson Arms. The culmination of a lifelong dream, the film was made possible by the sale (after an extensive rehab) of my own home—a DIY endeavor dependent, for its success, on both hard work and good fortune. Because I was a first-time everything and the film, a comedic romance, was shot in two weeks (with animal actors and characters speaking Chinese) there were hiccups—and more than a few warts. After the film wrapped, I believed (foolishly, it turns out) that I didn’t need to hire an editor because, […]
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BRUCE!!!!: How a Special Ed Teacher Scored a Nationwide Release for his Independent Film
I was a paraprofessional (teacher’s assistant) at P256Q in Far Rockaway, Queens for 10 years working with at-risk youth. I loved my job! On Wednesdays, I would work half-days and go to Brooklyn College where I was studying film. Like clockwork every Wednesday as I was leaving, one of my eight-year-olds, Latina “Peanut” Bilbro, would ask me if I was “…going to make movies and be famous someday?” Reluctantly, I’d say yes, and she’d always reply with, “I believe you, Marryshow.” Years later, Latina was killed in a drive-by shooting. It was a week after her 18th birthday. She had […]
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Audiences in the Sky: How to Sell Your Film to the Airlines
In 1996, flying home from Slamdance, I was stuck on the tarmac at the Salt Lake City airport in a blizzard. After an hour and a half, a Sundance actor and I tried to talk the flight attendants into playing a VHS tape of my film Omaha (The Movie) in the cabin. They were happy to but said we had to clear it with the pilot and led us into the cockpit. The pilot thought it was a cool idea, too, but ultimately wondered whether the corporate office might object and decided he probably shouldn’t play the film. To this […]
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On Decks: The Art (and Necessity) of the Independent Film Lookbook
Lookbooks are an increasingly vital part of the filmmaking process. A good lookbook can make a pitch, just as a bad one can dissuade an investor, producer or financier from a project. Yet the creation of lookbooks is rarely discussed. The topic is missing from the many labs and tutorial programs set up to help first-time filmmakers—even though a good lookbook is perhaps the quickest way for a project to stand out. Simply put, refined visual knowledge and the skillful conveying of that knowledge is power for a director. When we interviewed Reed Morano last year about her work on […]
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Fear and Loathing in Grand Rapids: Joel Potrykus on Managing Anxiety While Making Relaxer
We were a week away from principal photography on my fourth feature film, Relaxer, and I wanted to run away. Production designer Mike Saunders and I had been building our apartment set inside his parents’ two-car garage, and things were taking too long. The entire shoot was to happen in that garage, so it had to be perfect. It didn’t look like it’d ever be ready, and I was stressing hard. My stomach burned. I couldn’t keep anything down. I’d been losing weight. I just wanted to sleep for three weeks and wake up with a finished film, but I […]
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“It’s Inspirational That He Creates a Language to Tell a Story That’s His Own”: Hu Bo’s An Elephant Sitting Still Discussed by DPs Ed Lachman and Philippe Rousselot and Critic Adriana Prodeus
The debut feature from writer and director Hu Bo, An Elephant Sitting Still, caused a sensation when it screened at the 2018 Berlinale. Nearly four hours long, the movie unfolds over the course of a day in and around a blue-collar housing development in a third-tier Chinese town. Interlocking narratives follow a bullied high school student, an elderly parent pressured to move into a nursing home, a gangster who must avenge an attack on his brother and a girl’s illicit relationship with a married teacher. The movie’s running time, difficult subject matter and troubled production have left an air of […]
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Camera-Stylo 2019: The Osmo Pocket
The notion of the camera-stylo, introduced by Alexandre Astruc in 1948, had a very circumscribed meaning: “the cinema will gradually break free from the tyranny of what is visual, from the image for its own sake, from the immediate and concrete demands of the narrative, to become a means of writing just as flexible and subtle as written language.” Quickly, though, the metaphor of camera as pen took on its own life: the French New Wave used it to propel auteur theory, while others used the metaphor in the opposite direction—filmmaking as a giant pen held by a crew, with the […]
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A Writer Director Responds to the Article “Disclosed” | A Brutally Candid Account of Indie Filmmaking
Taylor Hess’s article “Disclosed: Producers and Therapists on Dealing with the Stress of a Demanding Profession” struck deep with me, so much so that I was compelled to write this response. I’m not a producer by choice. I’m a writer/director, and out of necessity, I produced my first feature film, The Purple Onion. I didn’t wait around for anyone or for the perfect conditions. I worked with trusted people around me and we did it, we made a movie and it got distribution. Now I’m in the process of packaging my second feature film through ICM. Again I’m my own […]
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IFP Announces Jeffrey Sharp as New Executive Director
Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP), Filmmaker‘s publisher, announced today Jeffrey Sharp as its new Executive Director. Sharp, as longtime Filmmaker readers will know, is a veteran producer whose credits include Boys Don’t Cry, You Can Count on Me, Evening and The Yellow Birds. He was also co-founder and President of Open Road Media, a pioneering digital publishing company that has an early innovator in the book space. Sharp’s non-profit experience comes from his role as co-founder and Chair of the Hamptons International Film Festival Advisory Board, and his most recent producing work with his Sharp Independent Productions has focused on productions […]
