Filmmaking

PTAK FIRES UP ARSENAL

Gabriel Snyder in Variety has the big news that CAA agent John Ptak is leaving the agency to head up Arsenal with partner Philip Elway. Ptak is one of the smartest guys around when it comes to structuring innovative foreign and equity-based financing arrangements, and the new company “will advise producers, distrib companies and private equity funds.” From the article: Arsenal’s initial client list will include Exception-Wild Bunch, Endgame Entertainment, Spitfire Pictures, Kadokawa Pictures USA and Davis Films. Shingle plans to be up and running just after this year’s edition of the Cannes fest closes. In a statement, Ptak said […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 8, 2006 Filmmaking
7’08"

Okay, he didn’t make it to his goal of nine minutes, but hats off to David Blaine for the culmination of another incredible piece of public theater. I was having drinks with a friend on the Upper West Side on Saturday night and walked down to Lincoln Center at 2:30 in the a.m. and there was a line a half hour long to see him underwater in his glass sphere. Tonight I watched the ABC special and found the seven-minutes-plus he held his breath impressive enough. But, most of all, I like that Blaine’s stunts, like Houdini’s almost a century […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 8, 2006 Filmmaking
SCORSESE, CBS RESPOND TO FCC, U.S. STORY EDITOR

William Triplett in Variety reports on a truly alarming development: the levying of fines by the FCC to broadcasters whose program content they deem not justified by story needs. The background: the FCC has issued $3.5 million in fines to 100 CBS stations for their airing of an episode of Without a Trace that included “two brief scenes suggesting a teen sex party, which the commission said was ‘unnecessary’ to the story.” CBS has filed a complaint, arguing “that this is a new assertion of authority that constitutes a ‘deep intrusion into the editorial process.’” The article continues: For the […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 8, 2006 Filmmaking
I AM CURIOUS, "YELLOW"

Via Coolhunting comes the latest in Adidas’s short-film series, Yellow, directed by Neill Blomkamp. The shorts have all been commissioned by the sneaker company to introduce new colors in its line, and, I have to confess, I find the shorts kind of confusing in their strange lack of relationship to the product coupled with their general inability to stand on their own as short films. A while back I linked to the first in the series, a mixture of animation and Jenna Jameson. (Thanks, Jenna, for spiking our traffic by linking to us from your MySpace page!) This new film […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 7, 2006 Filmmaking
SPIRITS RISING

In his weekend report, Len Klady over at Movie City News cites the solid box-office performance of Courtney Solomon’s An American Haunting this weekend: The frame’s other national freshmen targeted horror and family fans to varying effect. An American Haunting, based on the historic Bell Witch incident, ranked fourth with good response that should pave the way for very good ancillary exploitation. Depending on who you quote, the film grossed between $5.9 and $6.4 million this weekend, and it opened against Mission Impossible 3. What’s really interesting, though, is that An American Haunting isn’t a studio release but an independent […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 7, 2006 Filmmaking
MORE ROOM

A while back I blogged about Tommy Wisseau’s The Room, which for years has screened monthly in L.A. in screenings organized by the filmmaker. Now, NPR has picked up on the story: The consensus is that the movie is so bad it’s actually painfully funny to watch. What makes the experience so much fun are the hundred or so fans that routinely show up for screenings. During the movie, audience members shout out their own commentary about the dialogue, the sets — and notably, the framed photograph of a spoon that inexplicably reappears. Each time this happens, plastic spoons are […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 6, 2006 Filmmaking
TRUTH IN PACKAGING

Screenwriter turned director Jessica Bendinger (Stick) interviewed on Box Office Mojo discussing the issue of writing credits and multiple writers on a single picture: Bring It On is the only original movie I’ve written. On First Daughter, I was the 15th of 17 writers and we all know what happens when you write by committee. I think the [writer’s union] and movie studios need to get real. I’m not opposed to truth in labeling. If you have so many writers, I think it should be required to say how many wrote it and then people wouldn’t go see it. Certain […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 6, 2006 Filmmaking
DREAM MACHINE

Over at sf360.org, Tilda Swinton delivers a San Francisco International Film Festival keynote address on “the State of Cinema” in the form of a response to her eight-year-old son who asks “what people’s dreams were like before cinema was invented.” Swinton offers up a wonderful free-ranging dialogue that encompasses everything from the Communist party, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Tropical Malady, Crash, and, especially, Derek Jarman. A tiny excerpt: My boy, what do you know of changed times, you who were born in 1997 and asked if there were cars before then or only horses and carts. For […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 4, 2006 Filmmaking
FAIRY TALE ENDING WANTED

In Josh Horowitz’s preview of Richard Kelly’s new Southland Tales in the latest Filmmaker, Kelly describes his film as a “dystopian fairy tale about the apocalypse.” Jeffrey Wells has the latest on Kelly, namely that his portrayal of an emerging American police state may be more realistic than even he imagined: Southland Tales director-writer Richard Kelly ‘s passport has been stuck “under review” for the past several days in Washington, D.C., because, I’m told, there’s a guy named James Kelly on the government’s terrorist watch list. The Donnie Darko director’s full name is James Richard Kelly, hence the confusion. But […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 4, 2006 Filmmaking
WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Arianna kicks our collective asses about the poor marketing job being done on the “net neutrality” issue. An excerpt: Why are the bad guys so much better at naming things? Especially legislation. Especially bad legislation. No Child Left Behind. Healthy Forests. Clear Skies. The PATRIOT Act. They have a special gift for coming up with monikers that are easy to remember and easy to get behind. Sure, they’re deceptive, but they’re also very effective. The same can’t be said for the utterly befuddling “Net Neutrality” — the critically-important push to ensure that the Internet stays democratic and uncontrolled by the […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 4, 2006 Filmmaking

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