Filmmaking

ADVANCE COPY

Below Peter Bowen blogs about the crossover between film production and criticism, namely the emergence of internet-distributed mash-ups and “web cinematic essays” as a new form of dialogue about the movies. So far, most of these pieces have been about films that have already been released. Now, though, the artist Chris Moukarbel has gone the mash-up editors one better by pre-empting Oliver Stone’s forthcoming World Trade Center with an twelve-minute web-distributed art project based on a bootlegged copy of Stone’s screenplay. From the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art: Moukarbel makes site-specific video and installations, often using found media […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 3, 2006 Filmmaking
GREY AREAS

In her Risky Business blog, Ann Thompson links to John DeFore’s “Bootleg Movies,” a piece appearing in Slate detailing “the strange films you find in the back alleys of the internet.” From the piece: These businesses, outgrowths of the kind of tape-trading scenes familiar to Grateful Dead fans, are run by enthusiasts out to finance their own hobbies, not to make a killing. (Traditional bootleggers charge a premium, but most offerings here are half the price of ordinary releases.) They sell everything from forgotten silents to auteurist curiosities to spaghetti westerns—usually on discs mastered from an old VHS release or […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 2, 2006 Filmmaking
"COULDN’T YOU HAVE USED RWANDA?"

I don’t know if it’s the editing of the interview or the thought processes of the director, but Jenifer Merin’s interview with Omen director John Moore in New York Press seems quite bizarre: From the piece: MERIN: The Omen’s the first feature to use 9/11 World Trade Center towers footage in a story other than the story of 9/11. And, you’ve included images from Katrina and other disasters. Why? MOORE: To contextualize the story. I want to make films that comment on what’s going on in the world, but not be ugly, stupid and raw about it by making dumb-ass […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 2, 2006 Filmmaking
COMFORTABLE CONVERSATION

Over at Green Cine — yes the site also has a collection of great original material as well as its excellent daily collection of links — Thomas Logoreci interviews Jay and Mark Duplass, whose The Puffy Chair opens today in San Francisco, Austin, Berkeley, Boston, Portland and DC. In the piece, they talk a little bit about what they are doing next: Jay: We’re trying to do a relationship movie in a horror genre. We’re not sure that it’s going to work, but we’re going to make it anyway. Mark: There’s some trepidation, but we do feel very confident in […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 2, 2006 Filmmaking
SELECTED AMBIENT WORKS

Capitalizing on the trend towards flat-screen and plasma TVs — and television as home design — Microcinema has announced a partnership with Colorcalm, “the best-selling producer of of ambient media and design-led programming,” that will result in a new label. Microambience will be “a dedicated distribution service and channel for ambient designers, producers, labels, and ambient moving image connoisseurs worldwide.” So far, the label ranges from video fireplaces to more interesting stuff like Colorcalm – By Design, a shorts compilation designed to play as a continuous loop which images by designers Peter Saville, Irma Boom and John Maeda and music […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 2, 2006 Filmmaking
BLIND AND GREEN

A story going around the N.Y. production community: When an Environmentally Aware Big Name Actor signed on his latest production, he asked that he be driven in a hybrid vehicle. Production informed him that there were no hybrids available to rent from their vendors. “But should we just drive you in a compact or mid-size instead?”, they asked, looking for a fuel-saving alternative. “No way!” he replied, and the production went ahead with the customary — and fuel guzzling — town car.

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 1, 2006 Filmmaking
LEGISLATING THE CRITICS

From Rob Nelson’s interview with Rick Linklater in this week’s Village Voice: If Linklater leaves the big questions of his movies to their audiences, how does he think they’ll respond when A Scanner Darkly opens in July and Fast Food Nation in the fall? “You can never prove or predict the cause and effect of anything, whatever its purpose,” he says. “When The Jungle was published a hundred years ago, they enacted the FDA. But in today’s world, we’re more likely to see legislation enacted to prevent us from criticizing the way things are. In Texas, it’s against the law […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 1, 2006 Filmmaking
NET IMPACT

I’ve been blogging in circles around the whole “net neutrality” issue recently, generally sympathetic to the concept that the internet should remain an egalitarian mode of communication in which all types — or packets — of information are treated equally. However, I’ve been reticent to declare one of the six bills pending in the House of Representatives dealing with this issue my favorite because I don’t feel that I’m an expert on all the underlying technical and business issues that underlie this debate. So, that’s why I responded to this article by Michael Grebb in Wired. It’s by no means […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 31, 2006 Filmmaking
EIGHT MINUTES

That’s how long the standing ovation was at Cannes for Kevin Smith’s Clerks 2.

By Scott Macaulay on May 29, 2006 Filmmaking
BLADE RUNNER ARRIVES AGAIN

Variety reports that a new, final director’s cut of Ridley Scott’s science fiction classic Blade Runner will finally be released this fall by Warner Brothers. The release of a deluxe DVD edition to supplant the bare-bones, hastily made (or so Scott says) “director’s cut” now in the stores has been long awaited by tied up by the film’s famous rights problems; when it went over-budget, the bond company took over and made changes in the edit, including adding an infamous voiceover and happy ending, that Scott hated. He revised the film years later but claims he was rushed. The trade […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 26, 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.