Filmmaking

ORPHANS SCREENS IN MEMORY OF LILY WHEELWRIGHT

Sad news that arrived shortly after this year’s SXSW Film Festival was the sudden death of actress Lily Wheelwright, who starred in Ry Russo-Young’s Orphans. Wheelwright gave a tough and honest performance in the film, which won a Special Jury Prize at the fest. Here’s what writer/director Andrew Bujalski had to say about the movie: “A sensitive & peculiar pastoral, Orphans manages to derive as much compelling energy from its locations & spaces (of the wide open & claustrophobic variety alike) as from its two terrific lead actresses, a rarity these digital days. The film will receive a special screening […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 28, 2007 Filmmaking
HERE’S TALKING TO YOU

Over at The Street.com, Jonathan Blum goes to NAB to discover “the future of media.” He lists three developments. The first, that Apple with its Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Studio is turning amateur filmmakers into pro-quality producers, is not so new and interesting. The second, that local broadcast television will be feeding itself to your cell phone in about a year’s time, is a little bit more newsworthy. But the third, dealing with HD radio, told me something I didn’t know. He says to forget all the news about XM and Sirius and to concentrate on the untapped […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 27, 2007 Filmmaking
RE-SHOOTING THE BLADE RUNNER SHOOT-OUT

Merrick over at Aint It Cool News posted a very fun piece of geek-out film news: Ridley Scott has completed reshoots of the Joanna Cassidy replicant shootout scene for the upcoming DVD final “director’s cut” of Blade Runner. He links to Film Ick, which provides details: The shots are for the sequence in which Cassidy’s character Zhora is chased through the streets. In the original film, the chase shows Zhora in flat boots but previously we saw her put on heels – the reshoots feature heels; the control wires for the squib that released Zhora’s blood was previously visible – […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 27, 2007 Filmmaking
JOE SALEH, 1934 – 2007

I received this email of an obituary that Jackie Raynal wrote for Joe Saleh, who died at 73 last week of complications from a stroke in Paris. Saleh produced many Merchant-Ivory movies and also founded the Angelika movie theater. Joseph J.M. Saleh who produced many of the Ivory-Merchant movies, created and founded the famous Angelika movie theater multiplex in New York, died in Paris last wek. Saleh financed the documentary STREETWISE which received the 1985 Academy Awards Nomination. He was also resposible for the developing the first network election night forecasting system in 1964. He was born January 18th,1934 in […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 26, 2007 Filmmaking
JAMAN BRINGS TRIBECA TO YOUR DESKTOP

Adam Dawtrey in Variety has a piece up today noting that digital download service Jaman is offering for free download six films screening at the Tribeca Film Festival. From the piece: Under the pact with Tribeca, six films screening at this year’s fest, which opens Wednesday, will be offered simultaneously for free download by users anywhere in the world for a period of seven days. Deal is believed to mark the first time a major festival will have given online exposure to part of its full-length feature program at the same time the movies unspool at the fest…. The six […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 26, 2007 Filmmaking
LIFE, ART, AND JIM LYONS ON THE CRAFT OF EDITING

In the comments section of my post on the passing of Jim Lyons, Josh Apter notes a podcast he’s put up of Lyons at the website for the Manhattan Edit Workshop. Click over to the site and into the section on Jim and you can download a podcast of him discussing the craft of editing. And here’s what Apter wrote in his post: Jim’s viewpoint and candor were always refreshing, and his commitment to process had a devilish enthusiasm. Whether screening an ancient 16mm copy of Jean Genet’s Un Chant d’Amour or deconstructing Roland Barthes’ essay on Greta Garbo’s face, […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 25, 2007 Filmmaking
LET ME THINK ABOUT THAT…

The problem with our sound-bite culture is that stuff that’s not a sound bit rarely makes it onto a news. But as any good film director can tell you, sometimes a person saying nothing can communicate so much more than an actor delivering the most eloquently written monologue. Over at The Huffington Post, director Alex Gibney blogs about his new doc, Taxi to the Dark Side, and, more specifically, Alberto Gonzalez. He poses the question, “Is Alberto Gonzalez stupid?” and wonders whether the Attorney General’s testimony last week is truly as hapless at it appeared or whether there was a […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 25, 2007 Filmmaking
GET CONNECTED AND GIVE BACK

On Saturday, April 28 the IFP will be doing a special Producing 101 panel with Waitress producer Michael Roiff, and veteran producers Lydia Dean Pilcher (The Namesake) and Big Beach’s Peter Saraf (Little Miss Sunshine). The three will be sitting down to discuss Roiff’s first producing effort with Waitress, written and directed by the late Adrienne Shelly, along with talking about some of the challenges producers face — developing material, finding money, building a strong team to get the project from script to screen. The panel (with reception to follow) takes place at the Helen Mills Theater (137 West 26th […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Apr 24, 2007 Filmmaking
CHOOSE… BUT CHOOSE WISELY

With the Tribeca Film Festival a few days away, Anthony Kaufman has a great piece over at indieWIRE about the rivalry between Tribeca, SXSW and LAFF. As the three fests are scheduled so close to one another, most of the times they are fighting for the same films (and leaving regional fests like Sarasota, Florida Film Festival and Independent Film Festival Boston with little to choose from). This causes headaches for filmmakers who due to premiere-crazed programming aren’t choosing a festival that’s best for their film but what fest will give them the most exposure. Here’s an excerpt: “’Call me […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Apr 23, 2007 Filmmaking
MORE CRISIS

In 2005 Filmmaker selected Rachel Boynton as one of our “25 New Faces of Independent Film” based on the advance knowledge we had on her completely excellent doc Our Brand is Crisis, which was successfully released in theaters last year. Today came more great news for Boynton and her doc. Pamela McClintock and Adam Dawtrey report in Variety that Warner Brothers has picked up feature remake rights to the doc for George Clooney and his Smoke House production company. According the trade paper, the film will be “reimagined as a dark comedy,” which is not much of a stretch if […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 23, 2007 Filmmaking

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