Filmmaking

MIKE FIGGIS ON WRITING AND MAD MEN

Director Mike Figgis has been posting excellent blog entries at FilmInFocus. Here’s a piece of his latest, in which he talks about great books, the magical expression of writing, and Mad Men. A few months back I watched an episode of MAD MEN, the American TV series that is based around the advertising industry in NY in the 60’s. I was quite taken by the episode I watched, it seemed to demonstrate my feeling that the best filmmaking and writing in mainstream cinema right now is coming out of US TV. I’ve guest directed one episode of THE SOPRANOS and […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 11, 2008 Filmmaking
THE END OF COPYRIGHT (BLOG)

William Patry, an attorney and author specializing in intellectual property, has been keepin a blog that covers copyright issues, but, last week, he decided to shut it down. He cited two reasons. First, since transitioning to a position as Senior Copyright Counsel at Google, he’s had a hard time expressing in the blog his own personal views without them being attributed elsewhere to him in his official capacity at the search giant. But the other reason is that he is depressed. From his post: This leads me to my final reason for closing the blog which is independent of the […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 11, 2008 Filmmaking
EVOLUTIONARY THINKING

I just caught up with Nicholas Carr’s thoughtful and resonant “Is Google Making Us Stupid” in the July/August issue of The Atlantic. His initial description of a new kind of malady will strike a chord with many who spend a good deal of time on the ‘net: Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 10, 2008 Filmmaking
TRANSITIONING VETERANS TO CIVILIAN LIFE

Filmmakers Amy Seimetz and Kelly Parker have created a short video for the nonprofit organization Veterans in Transition. Here’s an email we received from Amy, and the video is embedded below. Kelly Parker and I made a video for a nonprofit called The VET Foundation. It is an organization that helps soldiers returning from the war transition back into civilian life. Whether you are for the war or against it, the fact is their are men and women coming back either injured physically, suffering from a traumatic brain injury and/or coping with PTSD. The government does not have and effective […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 10, 2008 Filmmaking
BATMAN FIGHTS THE NEO-CONS

I was late to see Chris Nolan’s The Dark Knight, only catching up to this astonishing and unexpectedly grim film this past week. It’s probably the first action film I’ve ever seen that’s exhausted me not by the intensity of its fight sequences but by its embedding of specific moral and philosophical dilemmas in all of its significant set pieces. Because I hadn’t seen the film, I avoided reading a lot about it, which means I missed the various pieces that have either celebrated (as in Andrew Klavan’s Wall Street Journal piece) or decried (as in Dave Kehr’s review) the […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 9, 2008 Filmmaking
25 NEW FACES UPDATE #4

Here’s the fourth of our catch-ups with previous “25 New Faces” filmmakers. If you’ve been on the list and haven’t sent us an update, you can still email one to editor.filmmakermagazine AT gmail.com.Laura Colella, writer/director, 2000: In 2000, I was gearing up for the Sundance Directing & Screenwriting Labs with my 2nd feature project Stay Until Tomorrow. After the amazing lab experience, I spent over a year trying in vain to get a company or established producer behind the project. Amy Geller, a great young producer, signed on. We set a date, were offered many substantial donations of equipment and […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 9, 2008 Filmmaking
HOW TO GET YOUR INDIE FILM ON iTUNES

…the short answer provided by Scott Kirsner at his CinemaTech blog: “It’s not easy.” Still, Kirsner lays out the options in a comprehensive blog post in which he names all the various aggregators who sell content on Apple’s market-leading download service, discusses their various terms, and provides contact info links. Essential.

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 9, 2008 Filmmaking
MAN ON WIRE REMAKE?

Over at The Circuit, Mike Jones reveals the possibility of a remake of the summer box office darling Man On Wire. According to him, Robert Zemeckis has the rights and could do a motion capture remake in the same style as The Polar Express and Beowolf. Man On Wire is one of the most powerful films I’ve seen this year and James Marsh‘s use of archival footage, the charisma of Philippe Petit and clever recreated scenes makes the doc more than, well, a doc, but a thrill ride. I can’t imagine why a remake is waranted, or how it could […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Aug 8, 2008 Filmmaking
ENJOY THE DOG DAYS AT HULU

I’ve been hooked on the free streaming video site Hulu the whole summer. And not just because I can watch episodes of The A-Team whenever I get a B.A. Baracus craving. Since June they’ve launched a new movie or TV show every weekday in their Days of Summer series (it ends in a few weeks). Today they premiered The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. Not one of my favorites, but for the most part I’ve been impressed by their taste: Lost In Translation, The Three Stooges collection, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, (and that was just the first […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Aug 8, 2008 Filmmaking
EBERT SMILES ON FROWNLAND

Ronnie Bronstein’s Frownland opens this weekend at Facets Cinematheque in Chicaco, and Roger Ebert has written an extraordinary review in the Chicago Sun Times. After opening graphs where he describes the uncompromising nature of the film and the storyline, he ends with this: Now why would you want to see this film? Most readers of this review probably wouldn’t. I’m writing for the rest of us. It is a rebirth of the need for expression that inspired the American independent movement in the first place, 50 years ago. It was written, directed and edited by Ronald Bronstein, who had a […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 8, 2008 Filmmaking

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