Filmmaking

SHAREWARE

Back in 1995 producer Ted Hope wrote a seminal piece for Filmmaker entitled “Indie Film is Dead,” in which he listed quite a few reasons why independent filmmaking was getting tougher and tougher. Go back and look at the piece and you’ll see that many of Hope’s industry criticisms hold true today. Here’s one: “The film industry, like all others, mystifies by design. All industries create their own vernacular, keeping the have-nots clouded in confusion. Variety takes this talent to an art form. The neophyte needs a class in how to read the trades, let alone understand them. Where is […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 14, 2006 Filmmaking
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

There was an excellent piece on Steven Soderbergh‘s The Good German in yesterday’s New York Times (Warner Bros. opens the film next month). Channeling the 1940s era of filmmakers like Michael Curtiz (Casablanca), Soderbergh has created a film that according to Dave Kehr has the look and feel of old Hollywood. An excerpt: During the production Mr. Soderbergh was committed to remaining as true as possible to the technique of the era. By reproducing the conditions of an actual studio shoot from the late 1940s, he hoped to enter the mind of a filmmaker like Mr. Curtiz, to explore the […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Nov 13, 2006 Filmmaking
FLAMING OUT

Last year director and d.p. Patryk Rebisz wrote in Filmmaker about making his short film Between You and Me entirely with a still camera in burst mode. He just emailed about his next project, a lovely music video for the band Plus/Minus in which he uses the same way of shooting and 170 burning Polaroids to capture the emotions of a crumbling relationship. Here’s the rough cut of “Let’s Build a Fire.”

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 12, 2006 Filmmaking
GOING MOBILE

Click here for the press conference in with Robert Redford announced a new partnership between the Sundance Institute and the GSM Association to commission six filmmakers to create short films for the mobile platform. From a piece by James Allan Miller in Smart Phone Today: Six filmmakers have been commissioned by the GSM Association and the Sundance Institute to create five short short films just for mobile handsets. The purpose of what’s called the Sundance Film Festival: Global Short Film Project is to extend independent filmmaking to what the institute’s president and founder Robert Redford refers to as “the ‘fourth […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 11, 2006 Filmmaking
GOT MILK?

Via Defamer, the following report sent it by one of its readers: “David Lynch RIGHT NOW is sitting on the corner of Hollywood and La Brea with a cow on a leash and a picture of Laura Dern that says For Your Consideration. He also has a sign that says “without cows there would be no cheese in the Inland Empire”. This is one of those things that a person needs to see. I wish I wasn’t chained to a desk.” And here, via YouTube, is a live view from video bloggers. Nate and Matt:

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 10, 2006 Filmmaking
FUR FLIES

If you link to this blog and bypass the main page, I just want to point you to Peter Bowen’s excellent interview with director Steve Shainberg, whose Fur opens today. An excerpt: Filmmaker: You didn’t want to make the film look like Arbus’s work, but you also cast Nicole Kidman, who doesn’t look like Arbus. Why Kidman? Shainberg: Whenever I see a biopic, no matter how much the person looks like the person they are playing, it just looks like a bad high school play to me. There is no way that Will Smith is going to look like Muhammad […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 10, 2006 Filmmaking
REMEMBERING ROSSELLINI

Here’s an early holiday gift for all you Roberto Rossellini fans. Beginning next Wednesday and running through Dec. 22 the Museum of Modern Art will be holding a Rossellini retrospective that will include his work in film, TV and a parallel exhibition on his film posters (retrospective also has dates set in LA and London). Manohla Dargis wrote up a little retro of her own in today’s New York Times and points out the lack of recognition the auteur has in the States. “One can’t live without Rossellini,” a character declares in Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1964 film “Before the Revolution.” Yet, […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Nov 10, 2006 Filmmaking
CLIPS 4 SALE

If your browser is working correctly, you’ve got Travis Bickle reciting his famous “Are you talking to me” speech from Taxi Driver on the screen below. And have I lifted his copywritten content off of YouTube to add some zest to the blog? No, using the Screenbites Channel of the Grouper website I’ve legally placed this clip — and an ad for the film’s DVD — on the blog along with a feature that allows you to upload your own rendition of the DeNiro monologue. Scott Kirsner (who picked the far friendlier Groundhogs Day for his own demo) explains over […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 9, 2006 Filmmaking
Taxi Driver: Are You Talking To Me?

Taxi Driver: Are You Talking To Me? View on Grouper.com Add to Blogger Blog Add a video comment to this video

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 9, 2006 Filmmaking
THE WAY WE WERE

In a post entitled “It Was All So Simple Then,” Mark K-Punk explores “the reality of nostaliga” in a typically wide-ranging essay that skips from Tarkovsky’s Solaris to Freud, Thomas Hardy, Gladys Knight and the Pips, The Way We Were, Tarkovsky’s Nostalgia, Roxy Music, Marvin Hamlisch, Blade Runner, Samuel Beckett, the Wu Tang Clan and Charlie Kaufman. From the opening: The reality of nostalgia is nowhere better invoked than at the end of Tarkovsky’s Solaris. When the camera pans away from Kelvin embracing his father on the rain-soaked steps of his dacha, we realise that the scene is yet another […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 9, 2006 Filmmaking

Cookie	Duration	Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.

Cookie	Duration	Description
cfmrk_cic		Used by Cloudflare to route user traffic for this Site.
sparrow_id		Installed by Cloudflare. Used to identify individual clients behind a shared IP address and apply security settings on a per-client basis. It does not store any personal identifiable information.

Cookie	Duration	Description
OAGEO		Installed by the Revive Ad Server. Used to cache geolocation (session, deleted when closing the browser)
OAID		Installed by the Revive Ad Server to distinguish users.