Filmmaking

GATHERING THE TRIBES

Screenwriter Annie Nocenti (she wrote Patriotville, directed by Talmage Cooley, which is currently in post-production) just returned from Baluchistan where she shot a documentary with partner Wendelin Johnson. She’s written a piece for The Brooklyn Rail discussing her trip which is a fascinating portrait of a “modern Sitting Bull”: the Khan of Kalat, Mir Suleiman Daud (pictured). A “chief of chiefs” in Baluchistan, one of Pakistan’s tribal provinces which also borders Iran and Afghanistan, Khan Suleiman is a Gucci shade-wearing, Hummer-driving statesman trying to unify the tribes towards an independent Baluchistan so that his people can stave off a “slow-motion […]

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 14, 2006 Filmmaking
THE BEST MUSIC VIDEOS

When it comes to year-end lists, I tend to skip over all the critics lists and concentrate on those that summarize categories of filmmaking I don’t pay enough attention to. Music video, for example. So, here’s Pitchfork’s Top 25 Music Videos of 2006, with links to the clips. Check out work by Sophie Muller, Patrick Daughters, Chris Cunningham and others.

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 13, 2006 Filmmaking
IT’S THE MOVIES, STUPID

From an interview by Fox News commentator Cal Thomas of departing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the differences between public support of World War 2 and public support of war in Iraq. One differing factor? The movies. Here’s Rumsfeld from the interview: Furthermore, the movie industry was mobilized to support the war. They (filmmakers) wanted us to win, which was an important factor. The situationtoday, the success that has been achieved in not having another attack onthis country in the last five years, has allowed the perception of a threatto diminish, even though the threat has clearly not diminished and, […]

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 12, 2006 Filmmaking
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER?

When we started Filmmaker, one of the key lines in our mission statement was that we were “demystifying” the process of feature film production. It’s still a key tenet of the magazine and the philosophy behind it has remained unchanged: by giving filmmakers the information on how films are financed, produced, sold and distributed, we’re helping enable newcomers to enter the filmmaking process and realize their visions. But is it really necessary for first-time filmmakers to know all about these things? By that I mean, isn’t a healthy amount of denial and willful ignorance essential to the process of getting […]

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 12, 2006 Filmmaking
REVISITING STONE’S WORLD TRADE CENTER

As part of its Oscar campaign for Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center, Paramount is streaming online EPK material on the making of the film, including interviews with its production designer, d.p., sound team and more.

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 10, 2006 Filmmaking
HOOK THEM IN THE FIRST TEN PAGES

The Raw Word is a monthly New York screenplay reading series in which up-and-coming actors perform 10 pages of scripts by up-and-coming screenwriters. Sponsored by the IFP, the series features an industry host and is a networking opportunity for writers, actors and development folk. The December event just passed, but you can submit “your most dynamic 10 pages in Microsoft Word or PDF format” for future readings by emailing them to: rawwordreadings@yahoo.com.

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 10, 2006 Filmmaking
COMPLETING THE PICTURE

Over at her journal, author Susie Bright eulogizes Gary Graver, the d.p., director, and colleague of Orson Welles in his later years, by noting the breadth of his overlooked biography. In addition to crewing films like A Woman Under the Influence, working extensively with Roger Corman, directing many low-budget horror films, and even shooting Ron Howard’s first feature, Grand Theft Auto, Graver, pictured here with Welles, directed many adult movies which, while included on iMDB, have been omitted from his various industry obits. Here’s Bright: Graver was memorialized everywhere, acclaimed in every paper from New York to L.A. But nowhere […]

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 10, 2006 Filmmaking
GIBSON’S FUTURE OF FILM

From The Guardian, a piece on Mel Gibson in which he places his new Apocalypto within a line of bigger-budget movies that are forming a new breed of independent films: Gibson has evidently chosen to turn his back on mainstream American cinema and take risks. “I’m getting to a place where I look at the future of cinema as independent film, through which there’s a hunger for a different kind of fare that simply isn’t being catered to by anyone, other than independent film-makers.” Not, he says, that he is deliberately shunning the mainstream studio system: “I really don’t think […]

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 8, 2006 Filmmaking
OVERWORK, DEPRESSION, RADIATION

The last time I linked to Tim Lucas and his excellent Video WatchBlog Lucas was dissecting the psychological motives and emotional pitfalls of DVD collecting. Now, in a post entitled “The Trouble with Blogging,” he is similarly ruminative about the film blogging rat race, realizing that his blogging compulsion has not left him enough time to dig into the new Thomas Pynchon novel. At the very least, Lucas’s post makes me feel better about my semi-frequent blogging breaks and sometimes sloppy proofreading. From the piece: “The trouble with blogging is that, at some point, you discover that you have become […]

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 8, 2006 Filmmaking
ROCKY TAKES ON JULIEN

Ain’t It Cool News is running for several days an online feature in which Sylvester Stallone, who is promoting his new Rocky Balboa, answers 200 questions from AICN readers. I was very, very surprised to read Day Five’s post in which Stallone answers a question about his favorite films by listing two: The Godfather and then a film I produced that I wouldn’t have guessed would be a pick of Rocky’s. Here’s Stallone: I like a lot of films from the 70s. I don’t like to speak specifically because sometimes people get offended. But, my taste runs from THE GODFATHER […]

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 8, 2006 Filmmaking

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