Filmmaking

DOWN SO LOW…

Declining box-office… shuttered indie arms… busted distribution windows… the credit crunch… bankrupt distributors… creative malaise — they are all cited by Dade Hayes and Pamela McClintock in Variety as the reasons for indie film’s “dismal year.” A key graph summarizes the debate that many in this business are engaged in right now: The bottom line is that it’s a changing world — and it might be something cyclical, or things may have changed permanently. The matrix of different ancillaries — which has expanded radically from the early video days to include VOD, Web downloads, airlines, music and merchandise — puts […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 26, 2008 Filmmaking
DON’T WATCH THIS MOVIE

I mean, really, don’t. It’s one of the greatest movies ever made, and a personal top ten favorite… but here on this blog is not the way to see it. Let me explain. I first saw Charles Laughton’s Night of the Hunter while visiting a friend’s house for the weekend. She had it on VHS and we watched it on a pretty small TV. I thought it was really good. Later, feeling I had missed out on seeing it on the big screen I caught it during a special run at New York’s Public Theater — back when the Public […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 26, 2008 Filmmaking
FASHION OF THE TIMES

Okay, cool mentions across the blogosphere are one thing, but a fashion spread in the Sunday Times is something else. Check out this feature to see Josh Safdie, director of The Pleasure of Being Robbed (my favorite independent film of the year), his brother Benny, actress Eleonore Hendricks and the rest of the Red Bucket Films crew wearing some of the latest Fall fashions. There’s also this group of curated Red Bucket Shorts.

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 24, 2008 Filmmaking
MEDIUM COOL

There’s a good edition of “The Medium,” Virginia Heffernan’s column in the Sunday Times Magazine this week. She tries to define what makes a web series work. In the most recent Filmmaker magazine newsletter I wrote about Max Richter’s new album, 24 Frames in Full Colour, which consists of 24 short pieces that Richter says are designed to be thought of as ringtones, not songs. In the letter I wrote about the perceptual change that prompted in the listener leading to a different kind of appreciation of the album. Applying this thinking to web filmmaking, I wrote that maybe we […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 24, 2008 Filmmaking
A NEW FESTIVAL DISTRIBUTION MODEL?

On the one year anniversary of Mike Jones’s “The Circuit” column at Variety, former AFI Fest Director Christian Gaines, who is now employed by Withoutabox, contributes a two-part discussion on festivals and our current failing indie film theatrical distribution model. Part one is titled “Do Festivals Matter?” and part two is “Things Gotta Change.” In part one, Gaines writes that festivals have become, for many films, the premiere exhibition opportunity: In the pantheon of viable choices for getting your film seen, film festivals continue to thrive (seems there’s a new one born every minute, right?), and that’s because, putting aside […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 24, 2008 Filmmaking
CROSSING THE UNCANNY VALLEY

I’ve written before about the “uncanny valley,” the term used in discussion of technological attempts to simulate the human visage. It refers to the phenomenon where things intended to look human suddenly seem unrealistic as they closely approach a realistic representation of the human. There was talk this month at SIGGRAPH about Emily, a completely animated character that promises, in the words of creator David Barton, “new levels of believability in computer animation.” From the linked piece in the Daily Mail: To create the footage the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies made a a computer generated replica […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 24, 2008 Filmmaking
25 NEW FACES UPDATE #8

M. Dot Strange, writer/director, 2007: Since being the only one hiding his face amongst the 25 I posted my animated feature film We Are the Strange on youtube subtitled in 17 languages where combined it has been viewed over 1.1 million times adding to my international audience. I did an animated music video for the NYC band “Mindless Self Indulgence” for the song “Animal” and it was included with the bands new album “IF” I’m currently completing the animatic for my new animated feature film Heart String Marionette. It is scheduled to be completed in January 2010 with production beginning […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 23, 2008 Filmmaking
THE ART OF WALKING

In a Guardian piece titled “Exit Strategies,” Ronald Bergan writes about a seldom-discussed part of moviegoing: walking out. His lede: Though life is too short, it seems to drag on interminably while one is watching a bad film. The moment during a film when I begin to question my very existence is the moment I decide to head for the exit. It is when I abandon any cool critical assessment. All I know is that my senses and intelligence are being abused by the ugly and stupid sights and sounds on the big screen. Bergan doesn’t just write about the […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 23, 2008 Filmmaking
SLAMDANCE CELEBRATES 15 YEARS WITH SCHIZOPOLIS & FOLLOWING

With the Slamdance Film Festival turning 15 in 2009, the fest has announced they will be having a series of special events to celebrate. The first will be next month as they screen Steven Soderbergh and Christopher Nolan‘s Slamdance-debuted films, Schizopolis and Following. From the release:FOLLOWING, a captivating neo-noir drama centering on a writer who follows people to ignite his creativity, originally bowed at Slamdance in 1999. Screening in Los Angeles at LACMA’s Bing Theater (5905 Wilshire) on Friday, September 5 at 8:00pm, $20 tickets through slamdance.com ONLY; no tickets will be available for purchase at the door. Q&A with […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Aug 22, 2008 Filmmaking
10 YARDS TAKES ONLINE PASS

Announced yesterday, filmmakers Hunter Weeks and Josh Caldwell just released their offbeat doc 10 Yards: Fantasy Football on Ourstage.com and SnagFilms.com. A conventional nationwide DVD release will begin on Sept. 30. According to a release about the online world premiere, Ourstage will offer a free iTunes download of the film for two weeks (as well as offer free music downloads from the soundtrack that features independent artists Luke Brindley, John Haydon, Analog Jetpack, Greenland, Family Jewlers and Santa Clara) while SnagFilms will stream it for free and allow for viral sharing via its “virtual movie theater” widgets. Weeks and Caldwell’s […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Aug 22, 2008 Filmmaking

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