Filmmaking

FEMALE TROUBLE

I’m usually annoyed that whenever the horror genre heats up, a bunch of indie filmmakers decide to capitalize on the trend and “make a horror movie.” Most of the time, these filmmakers don’t really like horror, don’t watch it, and don’t understand its specific rules and traditions. And then they wonder why people don’t find their scripts scary. So, this article in Variety by Archie Thomas is quite interesting. It reports on a new venture from the folks at the U.K. film production company Warp X. It’s called Darklight, and it’s a program intended to get horror newcomers — specifically, […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 27, 2007 Filmmaking
PATENT LEATHERED

For those of you who briefly scanned the recent headlines stating that Microsoft was fined $1.52 billion for infringing on two minor patents related to MP3 technology with only mild passing interest (or glee), Kevin Drum at the Washington Monthly has a solid post explaining why this situation is more than a little screwed up. Here are the key graphs: So how about MP3, the ubiquitous music encoding standard? Who holds the patents on that? Answer: the MP3 standard was developed in the early 90s and the patent pool was originally controlled by Fraunhofer IIS. Microsoft paid Fraunhofer $16 million […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 25, 2007 Filmmaking
FILM INDEPENDENT 2007 SPIRIT AWARDS

The Film Independent Spirit Awards were handed out yesterday in Santa Monica, California. Here are the winners. Best Feature: Little Miss Sunshine, Producers: Marc Turtletaub, David T. Friendly, Peter Saraf, Albert Berger & Ron Yerxa Best Director: Jonathon Dayton & Valerie Faris, Little Miss Sunshine Best Screenplay: Jason Reitman, Thank You For Smoking Best First Feature: Sweet Land. Director: Ali Selim. Producers: Alan Cumming, James Bigham, Ali Selim Best First Screenplay: Michael Arndt, Little Miss Sunshine John Cassavetes Award (For the Best Feature made for under $500,000):Quinceañera. Writer/Directors: Richard Glatzer & Wash Westmoreland. Producer: Anne Clements Best Supporting Female: Frances […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 25, 2007 Filmmaking
HANGING AT THE CON

The second annual New York Comic Con seems like the last place Filmmaker would be at but yesterday I was at the Javits Center to see new footage of Eli Roth’s sure-to-be gore fest Hostel: Part II and got a look into fan boy paradise. Showing up a little early to get my badge, I walked around the trade show which is split up in designated areas for comic giants like DC Comics and Marvel, turn a corner and you can try your hands at some of the newest video games, and a little farther down are racks of memorabilia […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Feb 24, 2007 Filmmaking
FIGHTING FOR FAIR USE

Kirby Dick‘s This Film Is Not Yet Rated didn’t just expose the inconsistencies in the MPAA ratings system but helped in the battle documentary filmmakers fight every time they make a movie and must determine what is in the realm of fair use and what isn’t. In Dick’s film over 100 clips are used to show how violent films are deemed acceptable by the MPAA while films with sexual scenes aren’t. Defining the clips as fair use, Dick didn’t pay licensing fees, which would have ranged between $10,000-$15,000 a clip. Inspired by the film, Kansas City-based Media/Professional Insurance has started […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Feb 23, 2007 Filmmaking
Colma Rocks the Indie World

COLMA: THE MUSICAL. Accustomed as we are to lavish, star-studded productions like Dreamgirls, Chicago and Moulin Rouge, it’s rare to hear the words “low-budget” and “musical” uttered in the same sentence. Contrary to high-priced expectations, however, Colma: The Musical is an upstart indie produced on a shoestring budget in the San Francisco Bay Area that has built a groundswell of support on the festival circuit over the last year, earning awards and prominent placement on year-end critics’ lists. Colma director Richard Wong received a Film Independent Spirit Award nomination in November for the IFC/Acura Someone to Watch Award, which “recognizes […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Feb 22, 2007 Filmmaking
SUPERSTAR RETURNS

Both underseen and mythologized due to rights-holder issues, one of the great pieces of proto-independent cinema — and certainly one of the most provocative director launches ever — can now be seen on Google Video. Click here to view Todd Haynes’s Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story.

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 22, 2007 Filmmaking
COCAINE ANGEL OPENS IN NYC

If you’re in NYC this week, check out Michael Tully’s Cocaine Angel, which opened at the Pioneer for a weeklong run yesterday. Tully was one of our “25 New Faces” last year, and here’s what Matthew Ross had to say about the film: Filmmaker, musician, blogger and housepainter Michael Tully has been keeping himself busy the past year. It was only about 13 months ago that he and writer-star Damian Lahey finished tearing a festering little hole into the drug-addiction film subgenre with Cocaine Angel, a dime-bag-budgeted, grime-covered crawl through a Florida cokehead’s sunshineless state. With its claustrophobic apartments, torn […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 22, 2007 Filmmaking
MORE KUBRICK (WITH A BEAT)

After posting about the Coudal Partners Kubrick page, below, I received an email alerting me to this link, which isn’t collated on the Coudal site. It’s from Cinefile Video, and it’s a true Kubrick oddity. Here’s how the site describes it: Somewhere a few months ago, our fearful Cinefile leader Hadrian read the soundtrack album for Full Metal Jacket had on it a track where R. Lee Ermey did a boot camp rap over a cheesy ’80s backing beat. Of course we had to hear it right away… Turns out that it isn’t so much Ermey on the mic than […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 20, 2007 Filmmaking
KUBRICK TALKS

Stanley Kubrick has been an obsession for many, including the folks at Coudal Partners, who have a “Stuff about Stanley Kubrick” page that collates all of the site’s posts on the director. Included are links to articles about unrealized Kubrick Jim Thompson adaptations, a PDF of his Napoleon screenplay, news about “the greatest movie Kubrick never made” (The Flying Padre) and more.

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 19, 2007 Filmmaking

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