Filmmaking

CAN ANYONE SPARE A BUSINESS MODEL?

I just finished writing the letter for this week’s Filmmaker newsletter and discussed a few thoughts prompted by my trip this past weekend to the Creative Capital retreat at Williams College. I used some discussions I had with both artists and filmmakers to think further about our need to come up with new economic (and patronage) models that can support media work in that hybrid space between the art world and conventional theatrical distribution. (By the way, if you don’t subscribe to our newsletter, you can do so here on the main page. Each week I’ve been using the space […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 31, 2008 Filmmaking
SELF DISTRIBUTING INDIE FILM

I’m late to the linkfest on this one, but I just caught up with John Anderson’s piece in The New York Times on self-distributing indie films. It’s positioned as a trend piece, and the hook is this week’s release of Randall Miller’s Bottle Shock, which the filmmaker is getting in theaters himself with the help of Freestyle Releasing and former Picturehouse exec Dennis O’Conner. Filmmakers, of course, have been self-distributing for years — the difference now is that the specialty distribution circuit seems like such a bleak place that fewer are questioning the decision to do so. What I found […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 31, 2008 Filmmaking
PUNISHING POLITICS

A new “Five in Focus” series launches today at FilmInFocus: five political writers or commentators discuss their five favorite films about political campaigns. Up today is a sophisticated and suprising list from Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. Along with Max Ophuls’ The Earrings of Madame De is Peter Watkins’ Punishment Park. From Perlstein’s piece: I’ve never seen a film that more convincingly projects the sheer rage Americans felt toward one another in 1970 than Peter Watkin’s astonishing mockumentary Punishment Park. In it, a group of radicals are basically tortured to […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 30, 2008 Filmmaking
25 NEW FACES UPDATE #2

Here’s the second 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. Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, directors, 2005: Since we were included in Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film” we co-directed a film called Jesus Camp that was nominated for an Oscar, and have completed television projects for CBS and VH1. We are currently making a documentary in Saudi Arabia, and producing a segment of the Freakonomics movie. In addition, we just signed on to make […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 30, 2008 Filmmaking
THE ART OF THE INCOMPLETE

Ted Hope forwarded this link to a fantastic list of “Top 10 Great Movies That Were Never Finished” over at List Universe. Of course, the term “great” is one of almost philosophical speculation as opposed to qualitative judgement. How can a film be great if it was never completed and viewed by an audience? Looking at it from another way, though, films create memories and desires in us long after we view them, and sometimes a film that is wished for yet remains an impossible object exerts a stronger pull on us than one that is released and quickly disappears […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 30, 2008 Filmmaking
GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE

While we here at Filmmaker were busy trying to be so ahead-of-the-curve with our 25 New Faces list, we were dreadfully behind-the-curve in another area: figuring out an appropriately smart and knowing take on Comic-Con that would enable us to preserve our indie cred while attracting a fair share of fanboy surfers. Next year we’ll figure it out, but as for this year, I’m glad we didn’t try because we wouldn’t have beaten Karina Longworth’s take on the event, which benefits from her own experience at a Comic-Con of days past. Her lede: When I first went to Comic-Con, almost […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 29, 2008 Filmmaking
THE BEST FILM T-SHIRTS?

A director came into my office the other day wearing one of the fantastic “film director name rendered in heavy metal script” T-shirts that can be found at CineFile Video in L.A. Our whole office was knocked out, and I made a point of stopping by the store when I was in L.A. to pick some up… but forgot. Fortunately, they’re available by mail order, so I can order them and so can you. Each t-shirt marries the name of particular director with the logo and font design of a specific heavy metal band. The new DePalma/Def Leopard design is […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 29, 2008 Filmmaking
25 NEW FACE UPDATE #1

Prior to this year’s 25 New Faces hitting the stands and screens, we asked everyone previously selected for this feature to send us a short email updating us on their activities since. Here are the first three responses — thanks to the filmmakers who sent them in. More will appear in the coming days. And, if you are reading this, appeared on this list and haven’t replied yet, please drop us a line and update us. In the coming days you’ll read about people whose films have been made and people who have decided to take other paths in life, […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 29, 2008 Filmmaking
SCOTT AND LANCE

In keeping with our all-embedded-video blog day, here’s Cinematech’s Scott Kirsner with Lance Weiler discussing “The Conversation,” a conference event that will premiere this October in Berkeley. Click play (and turn off David Byrne’s auto-starting clip) and learn more.

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 28, 2008 Filmmaking
NEW DAVID BYRNE/BRIAN ENO RECORD

Announced at here. Click on the link to sign up for a free track on August 4. Download drops on 8/18. There’s an announcement video that which I previously had pasted here, but it annoyingly self-starts every time the page loads, so I took it down. You can find it at the site.

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 28, 2008 Filmmaking

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