Filmmaking

SLOW TRAIN COMING

Over at Hollywood Elsewhere, Jeffrey Wells thinks that the trailer for Todd Field’s Little Children is the best trailer of the year. As he explains in the story linked to above, Fields didn’t want the trailer to have “music, dialogue or story.” The trailer New Line, Field and the trailer company came up with uses prominent sound design — a foreboding train horn — and shots of the actors to succinctly capture the film’s marital implosions. The trailer is good, and it’s all the more striking for its avoidance of today’s typical trailer cliches and conventions. It was cut by […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 27, 2006 Filmmaking
TONI, TONI, TONI

I’ve been a fan of New Zealand stuntman-turned-director Nash Edgerton for a little while now, and I just came across this lovely music video for Toni Collette. (Yes, Toni Collette sings.) It takes a little while for one of Edgerton’s twists to arrive, but the one-take video is quite gorgeous and worth checking out. For more of Edgerton’s work, check out his website. I’m sure he’ll be moving into features very soon.

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 26, 2006 Filmmaking
HOLDING DOWN THE FORT

If you want to read some great and diverse film writing, I really recommend you check out Stu Van Airsdale’s The Reeler this week. While Stu travels to L.A., he’s asked a great group of New York film people to guest-blog, and so far, each writer has really risen to the challenge. Check out Stu’s blog and read: Andrew Wagner posting from the editing room of his new feature; James Ponsoldt on MOMA’s Dada show and the art movement’s relationship to contemporary comedy; author Lauren Wissot on Roman Polanski’s foot fetish; AMMI curator David Schwartz on Jacques Rivette; Eric Kohn […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 26, 2006 Filmmaking
NEW BEGINNING

Rian Johnson, who wrote and directed the recently released Brick, has helmed a music video for Mountain Goats, which you can see below.

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 18, 2006 Filmmaking
WAITING FOR THE MAN

Halfway through Pusher, Nicolas Winding Refn’s first installment in what would ultimately become an epic trilogy, the director faced a predicament. Suddenly, the genre marked by guns and car chases held no interest. He abandoned the beatings and foot chases from the film’s early scenes, and went for a haunting, harrowing character study. “I realized I wasn’t interested in gangsters and crime,” the Danish filmmaker explains of his 1996 film. “I was really interested in the morality of the characters, and their emotional descents into hell.” That’s from KM Doughton’s feature on Nicholas Winding Refn’s Pusher trilogy which we’ve just […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 16, 2006 Filmmaking
Film Fix

Director Nicolas Winding Refn on “The Pusher Trilogy” KIM BODNIA IN “PUSHER” Halfway through “Pusher,” Nicolas Winding Refn’s first installment in what would ultimately become an epic trilogy, the director faced a predicament. Suddenly, the genre marked by guns and car chases held no interest. He abandoned the beatings and foot chases from the film’s early scenes, and went for a haunting, harrowing character study. “I realized I wasn’t interested in gangsters and crime,” the Danish filmmaker explains of his 1996 film. “I was really interested in the morality of the characters, and their emotional descents into hell.” “The Pusher […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Aug 16, 2006 Directing
LENS ON LEBANON

Astra Taylor, one of our “25 New Faces” this year, passed on information about a new media activist and documentary organization, Lens on Lebanon, currently seeking donations and support. From the group: Lens on Lebanon is a grassroots documentary initiative formed in response to the devastating Israeli bombardment of 2006. As filmmakers, journalists, and activists from Lebanon, Europe, and North America, we are pooling our resources to deliver film and video equipment into communities in south Lebanon, and to bring out documentary evidence as well as photo narratives, and video diaries of daily life under siege. With its infrastructure destroyed, […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 16, 2006 Filmmaking
KILLING AN ARAB

I kinda wondered this myself when I read the story: Why is George Bush reading on his vacation in Crawford, Texas, an existentialist novel about a man who impulsively and without provocation kills an Arab? John Dickerson gives it some more thought over at Slate: Unhappy tales of East meets West are found in the papers every day, so presumably the president was looking for more, but his aides will not tell us what he made of the story of a remorseless killer of Arabs. White House spokesman Tony Snow said Bush “found it an interesting book and a quick […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 15, 2006 Filmmaking
DISTRUSTING DARK LORD

Screenwriter John August (Go, Big Fish) has been directing a movie, an indie and his first, and he’s been writing about it on his blog. This week he discusses the dilemma of working within the industry and still trying to audience-test your work: Last Monday was the first time I put The Movie in front of an audience: thirty friends and colleagues recruited to help figure out whether the film was appropriately funny, dramatic, and comprehensible. (Answers: Yes, Yes, and Not So Much. We’re working on that last part.) Screening a work-in-progress is just as nerve-wracking as it sounds. Going […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 10, 2006 Filmmaking
HOW MANY PRODUCERS…

… does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Answer: Does it have to be a lightbulb? Jokes aside, the topic of producer credits — who deserves them, who doesn’t, and whether or not they should be regulated — has been in the news this year due to producer and financier Bob Yari’s lawsuit against the Producers Guild of America and AMPAS regarding his credit on Crash. In the new Filmmaker, producer Kendall Morgan (Southland Tales) uses the Yari case as the jumping off point for a discussion of these issues, and her piece — which is not posted on […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 10, 2006 Filmmaking

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