Filmmaking

THE QUESTION OF REALITY

It is a sign of insanity to do the same thing over and over (like make an independent film) and expect different results? At GreenCine, Jonathan Marlowe re-poses the question of the moment in a piece entitled “Studios didn’t build their sales models for you”: Under these circumstances, why are filmmakers still holding out for the legendary promise of a theatrical release? When the likelihood of success for films made on spec (that is, a film made with private money on the hopes of selling it to an established studio or distributor) approaches the same statistics as the chances of […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 26, 2008 Filmmaking
BRIAN ENO AND THE NEW FOLK MUSIC

Brian Eno, who just turned 60, is interviewed in Wired, and as part of his long conversation he talks about the changing definition of the artist in the digital/social-networking age. Wired: Much has been made about the way tech (MySpace, digital distribution) has sped up the whole hype/buzz process. Had your career gone from 0 to 160mph the way it could today, how might that have influenced your development as an artist? What effect has Internet technology and culture had on art and artists? Eno: That’s an interesting question. The effect of highly accelerated careers could be this: Ideas are […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 26, 2008 Filmmaking
FREE IS JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR…

If you’re an indie film pontificator who likes to talk about Radiohead’s and NIN’s innovative free pricing models, then you should check out the weekly podcast Econ Talk, which spent an hour with Wired’s Chris Anderson, whose next book is all about the trend towards no-cost goods and services. (This topic was explored by Anderson in a recent Wired cover story. I subscribe to Wired, not because I read it that much, but because it’s only $8, and I get enough out of it to justify that cost. But I didn’t read Anderson’s piece in Wired, although I did listen […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 25, 2008 Filmmaking
CANNES WINNERS

Indiewire has the winners of the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, and there are surprises all around. First, the Stateside scuttlebutt that Soderbergh’s Che would be awarded the Palme d’Or was wrong. Benicio del Toro won the Best Actor award for the film, but the festival’s top honor went to Laurent Cantet’s Entre Les Murs (“The Class”), the latest from the director of Human Resources and Vers le Sud and the last film to screen for the jury. Here’s the lede from Justin Chang’s Variety review: A fully sustained immersion in the academics, attitudes and frequent altercations of a group of […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 25, 2008 Filmmaking
DISTRESSED ASSETS

The New York Times Sunday business section has an article on Cinetic Media’s new digital rights division. Here’s the painful lede by Brooks Barnes: MORE than 3,600 independent features were submitted to the Sundance Film Festival this year, a record driven by inexpensive digital equipment and an abundance of film financing. But only a couple hundred of those movies will ever be distributed in theaters. Does that mean that almost 90 percent of indies have zero value?

By Scott Macaulay on May 25, 2008 Filmmaking
Moral Burdens

Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akin’s The Edge of Heaven is a fierce, generous melodrama of boundaries and passions, of blood and yearning, the second of a trilogy about émigré culture patterned after Fassbinder’s “BRD Trilogy” (The Marriage of Maria Braun, Lola, Veronika Voss) of post World War II German history. His fiery prior feature, Head-On, is the “love” component, with Edge comprising “death” (with “evil” on the way). Comparisons can be drawn to other work by the late German director, especially with his inclusion of Fassbinder stalwart Hanna Schygulla in a major, moving role. Akin seems to have found his métier […]

By Jason Guerrasio on May 21, 2008 Directing
PRONOUNCING "SYNECDOCHE"

Variety’s Mike Jones has posted this funny video about the pronunciation of Charlie Kaufman’s latest, due to screen in Cannes on Friday. For the record, and from Wikipedia: Synecdoche (pronounced /s??n?kd?k?/) is a figure of speech in which:a term denoting a part of something is used to refer to the whole thing, ora term denoting a thing (a “whole”) is used to refer to part of it, ora term denoting a specific class of thing is used to refer to a larger, more general class, ora term denoting a general class of thing is used to refer to a smaller, […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 21, 2008 Filmmaking
THE FUTURE IN YOUR LIVING ROOM

Saul Hansell in The New York Times explains “Why the Roku Netflix Player is the First Shot of the Revolution.” An excerpt: The future of video is Internet streaming to the television. This is a bold statement, but I think the Netflix Player proves all the essential concepts. If a TV, with a handful of extra chips, can provide an experience as satisfying as the Netflix Player can, why do we need any other form of video distribution?

By Scott Macaulay on May 20, 2008 Filmmaking
PREVIEWING SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK

Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York, doesn’t premiere in Cannes until Friday, but there are some clips online that I think make it look very promising. Check them out. Synecdoche, New York sur Comme Au Cinema Flashback: Here’s my interview with Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman about Being John Malkovich from 1999.

By Scott Macaulay on May 20, 2008 Filmmaking
VACHON AND SLOSS TALK BUSINESS

The best film news podcast, KCRW’s The Business, hosted by Claude Brodesser-Akner, has as its guests this week Killer Films president and producer Christine Vachon and Cinetic Media founder and sales rep John Sloss. The program is titled “Indie Film Shake-Up,”, and in it the two discuss the indie market in the wake of Rainbow Media’s purchase of the Sundance Channel and the shuttering of Picturehouse and Warner Independent by Warner Brothers. Among the discussions are Vachon’s looking back at how successful indie films like Poison and Go Fish seemed to her when they grossed over $1 million. Now, the […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 20, 2008 Filmmaking

Cookie	Duration	Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.

Cookie	Duration	Description
cfmrk_cic		Used by Cloudflare to route user traffic for this Site.
sparrow_id		Installed by Cloudflare. Used to identify individual clients behind a shared IP address and apply security settings on a per-client basis. It does not store any personal identifiable information.

Cookie	Duration	Description
OAGEO		Installed by the Revive Ad Server. Used to cache geolocation (session, deleted when closing the browser)
OAID		Installed by the Revive Ad Server to distinguish users.