Filmmaking

IFP UNVEILS ROUGH CUT LAB SELECTIONS

IFP announced today the ten films selected to participate in its third annual Narrative Rough Cut Lab, a national program connecting mentors and projects by first-time feature filmmakers before they are submitted to festivals. Taking place in New York City June 12 – 15, this year’s Lab includes a number of new initiatives, such as: the formation of an Advisory Board, expansion of the program from three to four days, and moving the program from September to June, thereby ensuring that participants will have time after working with their mentors to submit their strongest work possible prior to the submission […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jun 11, 2007 Filmmaking
SHOOTING FROM THE LIP

Over on the main page check out Jamie Stuart’s Q&A with legendary cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. Here’s an excerpt: Filmmaker: Apocalypse Now. Theatrically, it was amazing to see it in its Scope aspect ratio, in 2001. I know that at this point you’re preferential to 2:1, but some people were upset to see it on DVD cropped from the 35mm 2.35. Storaro: Well, I always connected with one painting that Leonardo did, The Last Supper. The Last Supper is 2:1. At the time of shooting Apocalypse Now, I was not aware. I don’t really remember when I became conscious of the […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jun 8, 2007 Filmmaking
BABY STEPS

At the Filmmaker office we’ve been researching the emerging online indie film market for an upcoming story about how independents are selling their work through digital download services. But perhaps I should just keep a running link to Scott Kirsner’s Cinematech blog as he’s made this field his beat for the last several months. This week he posted “For Indie Filmmakers: How to Sell DVDs Online”, a recounting of a conversation he had with Jamie Chvotkin, founder of FilmBaby.com, a site that assists filmmakers in the marketing and promotion of their DVDs. (More info here.) What’s interesting about the post […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 6, 2007 Filmmaking
CELEBRATING MELVIN

Out on DVD today is Joe Angio’s documentary, How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (And Enjoy It), on the life and work of Melvin Van Peebles. I saw the film at its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival a few years back and when I watched it again on IFC not too long ago I was reminded by how well done the film is. Angio not only examines how Van Peebles’ Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song invented the Blaxploitation genre, but spotlights his renaissance life which includes working on Broadway and the New York Stock Exchange. But I think […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jun 5, 2007 Filmmaking
JUDD APATOW, FOREVER YOUNG

Over on the main page Nick Dawson interviews Knocked Up‘s writer/director, Judd Apatow. Here’s Apatow on what he considers to be his defining trait, awkwardness: It’s true, I’m a very awkward person. It’s hard to shake. Some people are wired for drug abuse or alcoholism or smoking; on some level, I’m wired to always feel like a goofball. No matter how well things go, I feel like I’m 15 years old. So when I’m out at a restaurant with my wife, I always feel like I’m on a first date and she might run at any moment. And it’s very […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 2, 2007 Filmmaking
THE INTERNET KILLED THE ADULT MOVIE STAR?

Matt Richtel in The New York Times today looks at how the internet is transforming the adult entertainment industry. As the porn business has always been something of a trendsetter when it comes to adoption of new technologies and viewing patterns — the adult biz was instrumental in popularizing home video in the ’80s, for example — the article is worth reading for independent filmmakers. It discusses how the ‘net is now beginning to inflict record-industry-scale losses on the porn industry while also noting how the porn companies are responding to the threat. From the piece: After years of essentially […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 2, 2007 Filmmaking
IRAQ VETS ON VIDEONATION

Filmmaker Astra Taylor (Zizek!), who was one of our “25 New Faces of Independent Film” last year, and producer Laura Hanna are producing clips for VideoNation, the new web documentary component of The Nation magazine. Their first has just been posted, a short piece on Iraq Veterans Against the War. The link to the new Nation video page is here and the piece itself is also embedded below. Taylor says to check back in a couple of weeks for her second piece, an animation about industrial food pollution.

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 2, 2007 Filmmaking
SHAME ON SHOWTIME

I met independent filmmaker Mohammed Naqvi a couple of years ago when he participated in the IFP Director’s Lab, which I taught. Now, he’s finished a powerful film, Shame, which is a doc version of the dramatic script he was writing back then. Premiering on Showtime this week, the film “tells the true story of international human rights icon Mukhtaran Mai, a Pakistani peasant who was gang-raped and publicly shamed in her village, but used her trauma to spark a legal revolution that exposed centuries of brutal tribal conflict and government mismanagement.” Here are the Showtime dates: Showtime May 31 […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 1, 2007 Filmmaking
EXTRA, EXTRA

Over at Cinematical Ryan Stewart rounds up some Darren Aronofsky news including word of his new script (Noah’s Ark) and a link to the director’s MySpace page where he blogs about his fight to release a bonus-packed DVD of The Fountain. From the blog: so the dvd came out.happy that it is in the world.hope more folks will get to see it. as many of you can tell it is light on the extras as compared to my previous dvd releases. everything at the studio was a struggle. for instance: they didn’t want to do a commentary track cause they […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 31, 2007 Filmmaking
NO MORALS WITHOUT STYLE

Today GreenCine links to a couple of articles discussing Rainer Werner Fassbinder, his legacy, and allegations that the Fassbinder Foundation and its director, Juliane Lorenz, have “systematically erased” (to quote d.p. Michael Ballhaus) important figures like composer Peer Raben and actress (and ex-wife) Ingrid Caven from the Fassbinder history. The key document is a translation in Sign and Sight of a Die Zeit interview with Caven (pictured here). Caven’s attack on Lorenz and the Foundation is what’s getting all the press attention, but the interview is also striking for Caven’s memories of Fassbinder’s sex life, the early days of the […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 31, 2007 Filmmaking

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