Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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“It’s an Intermediary Kind of Format Designed to Move Ideas, Language and Structure to the Screen”: Oren Moverman Talks Screenwriting with Ryan Gosling
The following interview appeared originally in Filmmaker‘s Fall, 2007 print edition. We don’t cover enough screenwriters in Filmmaker, but that’s not entirely our fault. This magazine is devoted to independent film, and for many, the director is also the writer. Or the script has emerged from improvisation or some other nontraditional means. And while there is a new breed of independent-minded screenwriters today — Charlie Kaufman, Capote’s Dan Futterman and Juno’s Diablo Cody come immediately to mind — many of the “marquee screenwriters” still work almost exclusively in the studio world. By virtue of the unique niche that screenwriter Oren […]
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ANY COLOR YOU LIKE
You don’t have to be a massive Radiohead fan (like me) to be interested in the sudden and unexpected news today about the release of their new album, In Rainbows. (Thanks, Pitchfork, for the heads up.) With this new release the band is busting the music retailing paradigm in ways that filmmakers might think about as well. The Radiohead site, linked above, allows you to buy the album, but it’s a bit, uh, mysterious, so you may as well get all the details from the Pitchfork link. But, here’s a synopsis of what Radiohead is doing that’s different: 1. The […]
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JAMIE STUART. NYFF. 45
Filmmaker is very happy to be sponsoring gumshoe director/journalist Jamie Stuart’s annual take on the New York Film Festival this year. Here’s his first piece: Stuart… with music; Schwartzman… without mustache; Anderson… sans sous-titres. Click here and enjoy.
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LET THERE BE LUMIERE
Over at Videoblogging, anyone with a camera is invited to subscribe to the Lumiere Manifesto and create one-minute works in the tradition of the turn-of-the-twentieth-century French filmmaking brothers. They’ve fashioned their call into a Dogma 95-ish Manifesto that dictates how such minute-long pieces must be conceived and shot. (Hat tips: Warren Ellis and Boing Boing) Here’s are excerpts from the Manifesto that argue for the validity of this homage in today’s times: We believe instead that everyday video brings together a collective consciousness and experience through which we all come to view a universal existence and see “light” in the […]
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PADDLING AWAY
Over at his Long Tail blog, Chris Anderson posts an email he received from Jeff Bach, an independent filmmaker at Quietwater Films regarding the viability of the “long tail” model for an independent producer. (In this case, it’s a sports non-fiction producer — Quietwater produces films on canoeing for boating enthusiasts). Anderson posts the whole email, but here’s an excerpt: But the reality at this time for me and my company is that I need to find multiple large national distributors if I hope to even come close to making a living at this game. And I need to produce […]
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DAWSON ON JESSE JAMES
For those of you who don’t regularly check the main page, which is now updated quite often with new content, including Nick Dawson’s “director interviews,” head over there and check out his latest: a lengthy conversation with Andrew Dominic, director of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
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GAYLOR GOES TO THE SOURCE
Here’s a Google link to a conversation that Scott Kirsner from CinemaTech had during the IFP Filmmaker Confernece with Brett Gaylor, a Montreal-based filmmaker who is exploring new modes of collaboration for documentary filmmaking. I’m also embedding below, but if you go to the Google page you can download the 12-minute piece in a format suitable for playing on your iPod or PSP.
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DIGITAL DOWNLOAD TALK… DOWNLOADABLE!
Over at his Docs that Inspire, Joel Heller has posted an MP3 download of Scott Kirsner’s IFP Filmmaker Conference panel on digital downloading for filmmakers. Here’s what he has to say about the conference/podcast: Kirsner is arguably the most engaging panel moderator on the new media scene, both because of his knowledge of emerging distribution platforms and the persistence he brings to asking panelists tough questions and keeping things moving along. Panels such as this one are a vital service to filmmakers, who are faced with an overwhelming array of online distribution possibilities in new media landscape that’s evolving at […]
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PROMISCUITY REIGNS
I’ve posted previously about Jonathan Lethem’s “Promiscuous Materials Project,” in which he allows filmmakers, songwriters and playwrights free adaptation rights to some of his short stories. Now, Lethem has a page on his blog in which he notes which artists have taken him up on his offer. An, in the cases of many of the songwriters, he posts streams of their work. Check it out. Among the film news: Blade Runner screenwriter Hampton Fancher is making a short fllm from Lethem’s story “Interview with a Crab.” Related: Lethem also announced that he would give the film rights to his latest […]
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WINTER COMES EARLY
If you are in New York this weekend, consider going to see Larry Fessenden’s Iceland-set, environmental/exisentialist horror movie The Last Winter, which is playing at the IFC Center. Manohla Dargis gave the film an amazing review in the New York Times. She wrote, in part: It’s amazing what you can do with a low budget, an expansive imagination and a smooth-moving camera. (A fine cast helps.) An heir to the Val Lewton school of elegantly restrained horror, wherein an atmosphere of dread counts far more than a bucket of blood and some slippery entrails, the director Larry Fessenden is among […]
